Gig Harbor’s major road project to widen and reconstruct sections of Point Fosdick Drive and 56th Street this spring is in jeopardy because a developer has backed out of its portion of the funding, according to city officials.
The project — estimated to cost a total of $4.6 million — is short between $800,000 and about $1 million, Mayor Chuck Hunter said during Thursday morning’s Gig Harbor Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Public Affairs Forum at Cottesmore of Life Care.
“We are lacking funds on that because of a developer committed to providing $1.25 million, and now they are not providing that,” city Project Engineer Marcos McGraw confirmed.
The city could make do with $800,000, McGraw said, but the developer in question balked at that as well.
Neither Hunter nor McGraw would identify the developer, although McGraw did say it was a major property owner along Point Fosdick Drive.
A July 11, 2011, letter from partner Robert Hogan of WWR Properties, doing business as Hogan Enterprises, to Gig Harbor City Engineer Steve Misiurak, states "we agree to provide private funding for the improvements associated with redevelopment in accordance with the City's design plans for the subject project. The value of these improvements in 2011 dollars is estimated at $1,250,000."
The improvements referred to include the Point Fosdick Drive/56th Street project.
Randy Boss, agent for WWR Properties, linked the road construction funding difficulties to Fred Meyer backing off its plans for a superstore last summer in the proposed Olympic Towne Center. Plans to increase retail building size limits in west Gig Harbor to allow a 100,000-square-foot superstore fell through, even after Fred Meyer offered to reduce its site size to 80,000 square feet.
Fred Meyer's participation had been seen as the primary driver behind the project to build a retail space along the west side of state Route 16 between the Wollochet and Olympic Drive interchanges.
When the Olympic Towne Center project gets a loan, Boss explained, there will be funds available for Gig Harbor's road project.
McGraw said the developer backed out in December some time after having being notified that Gig Harbor had been awarded a $2.6 million state grant through the Transportation Improvement Board.
The grant require the project to be out to bid by March and under construction by late spring.
Project plans call for the construction of a new roadway and the removal of the old asphalt roadway. In addition, look for installation of a new storm drain system, sanitary sewer force main, additional turn lanes, curb/gutter sidewalks, as well as sidewalks, streetlights and landscape medians.
Construction is set to begin on May 18 with a tentative completion date of May 1, 2013.
With negotiations under way between the developer and Gig Harbor, both city officials remained cautiously optimistic.
“We are hopeful that it can be resolved and be mutually beneficial to every party involved,” McGraw said. “We’re diligently working on that.”
“We’re proceeding like it will,” Hunter said of the project going ahead on schedule, “but I don’t know.”
Reporter Brett Davis can be reached at 253-853-9243 or by email at brett.davis@gateline.com. Follow him on Twitter, @gateway_brett.
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