Governor Mike Parson’s announcement of $6.678 million in a transportation cost share grant was big news for Platte City, according to Mayor Tony Paolillo.
“Governor Parson’s announcement gave us the last piece needed to partner with five other funding sources to make the $16.8 million Mo. 92 East Side project a reality,” Paolillo said. “The four lane 92 project will continue the east side transformation that the city has been working to achieve over the past 40 years.”
According to city officials, the first piece of the development puzzle came in the late 1980’s with placing the water standpipe east of Interstate 29.
“Developing the 40% of the city east of I-29 has been one of my primary goals since my first term as an alderman in 2008,” Paolillo said. “Although the city had been making slow progress on the east side, the two million square feet Platte City Commerce Center announced last year and the Governor’s announcement earlier this week accelerated us to warp speed”
Paolillo said the project funding is a tribute to the partnerships the city has developed with the private sector and other government agencies. In addition to the $6.67 million announced by Parsons, the project is also receiving multi-million dollar contributions from Platte County, MARC and VTRE as well as funding from the Platte City Transportation Sales Tax Fund. The Platte City Special Road District is also contributing a funding commitment to provide backstop funding if the project exceeds its final budget.
“There is no way the city could have paid for a nearly $17 million dollar project by itself,” Paolillo said. “However, when we combine money from the City and our five partners, we can accomplish a great deal at a price we can all afford.”
The city has worked with MoDOT, Platte County and other regional partners for the past 10 years to improve Highway 92 on both sides of the interstate. Hwy. 92 inside Platte City has changed a great deal with the Kentucky/Quik Trip intersection, the Exit 18 overpass improvements and last year’s surface work from Marshall to Kentucky. All of those projects were made possible by a great deal of planning and even more work to build partnerships with private sector businesses, MoDOT, Platte County and other local agencies.
The City did its first east side 92 planning through a 2015-16 Planning Sustainable Places grant from the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC). That was a community-based planning effort that has been the city’s blueprint over the last eight years. The keystone of that plan was to transform Hwy. 92 east of I-29 into a four-lane divided urban highway.
“The east side 92 improvements are important to both the growth and sustainability of Platte City,” said D. J. Gehrt, city administrator. “Building it out as a four-lane divided highway will safely accommodate the increase of both commercial traffic from Hunt Midwest and from the two-million-square-foot Platte City Commerce Center and from the new east side residential development.”
While the 92 project will add east side capacity, it will also sustain and protect the small town feel of the current Platte City. Adding east side capacity up to the I-29 exit will allow the east side to grow without too much traffic spill over into the portion of Platte City west of I-29.
“This gives us the best of both worlds,” Paolillo said. “The city will have the infrastructure to grow in the east side development area while it minimizes the impact on the small town feel that we want to preserve in the current Platte City.”
A according to Gehrt, at almost $17 million dollars this is the city’s largest single infrastructure project to date. The project comes on the heels of and is partially driven by the largest single development project in the city’s history, the $200 million dollar Platte Commerce Center announced by Van Trust Real Estate (VTRE) in August of last year.
“The combination of these two projects will drive the transformation of the east side that the Board of Aldermen worked to accomplish for many years,” Paolillo said.
The project concept is to improve Hwy. 92 to a divided, four-lane highway with curbs, gutters and sidewalks from Interstate 29 east to Bethel Road, a distance of 1.3 miles. The project also includes improvements to the Bethel Road/Hwy. 92 intersection. Although the project design is in a very early stage, the intent is to construct all the new lanes on the currently undeveloped side of the Hwy. 92 right-of-way, according to the city administrator. The two new lanes should be constructed on the north side of the existing Hwy. 92 from the interstate almost to the entrance to Timber Creek subdivision. The roadway will be realigned between Timber Creek and Bethel Road to place the new lanes on the south side of the existing highway. The conceptual design with new lanes on the undeveloped side of the current highway will minimize or eliminate impact on existing homes and businesses.
There will be a series of public meetings and other public comment opportunities throughout the design process, Gehrt said. The city hopes to begin engineering design by the middle of 2023 in order to be in a position to begin construction in late 2024 or early 2025.
“This is a long process,” Paolillo said. “Like any major project it will not be easy or quick to get from funding approval to finished project, but east side development is now a reality rather than just a hope.”