Industry leaders laud completion of new road

The road improvement project at Mountain View Industrial Park is now complete.

The project was made possible by a matching funds state grant from Economic and Community Development secured by Warren County?s Industrial Development Board. The road project is one of a series of improvements planned for the industrial park as funding becomes available.

Representatives from local government, the highway department, Industrial Development Board, as well as industrial park businesses, gathered recently to mark the project?s completion.

According to director of economic development Jeff McCormick, the ECD grant, which was approved last October, included a little over $517,000 from the state which, with matching funds of $98,000 from the county, provided a total of around $616,000 for the road expansion. Some of the county?s matching funds were covered by in-kind work performed by the Warren County Highway Department, which helped reduce the overall cost of the project.

The project widened Mt. View Industrial Drive to three lanes from Progress Boulevard, where Morrison Tool & Fab is located, past Yorozu to the northern entrance to the park.

According to assistant road superintendent Levie Glenn, the dirt work on the project began in November, while paving began around the middle of last month.

?Everything?s gone real well,? Glenn said. ?The length of road funded by the grant from Economic and Community Development, which took around three years to get, was about 4,500 feet. The county highway department, through the Highway and Bridge Committee, carried the road further to the railroad tracks, adding approximately 2,400 feet, making approximately 6,900 feet, well over a mile long. It?s all 36 feet wide and has a lot of turning lanes for all these businesses out here. It?s turned out real well.?

McCormick says the new stretch of road provides a number of benefits, including reducing congestion and improving traffic safety for all the businesses in the park.

?It makes traffic flow a whole lot better,? McCormick said. ?It makes it easier on employees getting in and out, makes it better on the businesses for shipments to get in and out. The road improvements also provide an effective tool for us as far as marketing purposes.?

Highway and Bridge Committee chairman Gary Prater, who, along with the committee, was instrumental in setting up the in-kind work from the highway department, agreed the improvements were a boon for the park.

?Appearance wise and traffic wise, it?s taken it from a 5 to a 10, so to speak,? said Prater. ?The road was getting in really bad shape, and this has made a really big difference. When something looks as good as that road does now, it makes everybody look good, from the smallest to the largest business in the industrial park.?