Road to Carvana getting a facelift

West Memphis council diverts overlay funds to repair work

By JOHN RECH

news@theeveningtimes.com

City Council approved bids and sent them to the city administration to _x the road to the new Carvana distribution facility. City of_cials told the council they pared back an original bid that would have busted the overlay budget. The new bids came in at more manageable costs.

City council members normally covet their slice of the asphalt overlay budget between wards. The city administration needed to divert some of the overlay budget to the Mid-America Industrial Park.

The city facilities board kicked in $85,000 and the overlay budget capped the project at 300,000 total to _x a portion of Family Dollar Parkway leading up to the Carvana.

The road has been in disrepair the seven years I’ve been here”, said MPO Director Amanda Hicks. “It’s a good asset to our economic development. We are using the overlay budget and we’d like to keep enough to do city streets also.”

See CARVANA, page A2

Road refurbishing began straight away after city councilapproved $285,000 for the intersection in the Mid-America Industrial Park last week. The city spent about one-third of its annual overlay budget on the busy corner leading to the entrances to Fed EX, Dollar Tree and Carvana distribution centers.

Photo by John Rech CARVANA

From page A1

The city settled for repairs of the worst of it. Economic Development Executive Director Phillip Sorrell said the city approached the bidder to get some of the work done for the amount of money set aside for the project in the city coffers.

“We actually changed order of bid to get it under $300,0000 which is more in line with what we budgeted,” said Sorrell. “There are other repairs on the road that need to be made, but we decided not to tap into the overlay budget any further and we’d take care of those next year, in 2022. They are not as bad was where Family Dollar Drive taps into Mid-America Blvd. It was deteriorated before the Carvana project came out and construction trucks hauling in and out over the last year accelerated the deterioration of the roads.”

“It’s pretty busted up right there in one area,” said Hicks. “It’s undercut that area and eight inches of concrete and 12 inches of back_ll.”