Developers win beltway change

Jeff Schweers

Wednesday, Feb. 5, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

A two-mile section of the Las Vegas Beltway will cost $3 million more in taxpayer dollars than planned because of modifications made at the request of developers.

The County Commission Tuesday approved modifications to the segment that runs northwest from Tropicana Avenue and El Capitan Way, crossing Fort Apache Road and merging with Hualpai Way just north of Flamingo Road.

Developers who own property along the beltway right-of-way objected to plans to elevate the highway, saying it would create noise and air pollution problems for future residents.

"We're talking about -- lots of people are going to live there," Commissioner Erin Kenny said. "This is lots better than a month ago."

Ronald Evans, an executive with Pacific Southwest Development, said the compromise was much better than the plan originally proposed by county engineers to elevate most of the two-mile segment.

"It's not a substantial cost to the taxpayers of this community," Evans said.

Several substantial sections of the southern beltway east of Interstate 15 are elevated through established neighborhoods, something commissioners want to avoid in the future.

"My feeling is that parts of the beltway that are contiguous be depressed to protect the residents," said Commissioner Myrna Williams, whose constituency is in older neighborhoods not affected by the beltway.

County beltway coordinator Denis Cederburg said a mutually satisfactory compromise was reached with developers after two meetings since the Jan. 21 board meeting where the issue was raised.

The new beltway profile would start slightly depressed at Hualpai, become fully depressed at Flamingo, go to grade level at Fort Apache and Peace to maintain the intersections there and become fully raised at Tropicana.

The motion by Commissioner Bruce Woodbury to direct staff to proceed with the new plans was approved by a vote of 6-1.

In a related action, the commission accepted a state plan to widen U.S. 95 to 10 lanes from Interstate 15 to Rainbow Blvd., despite protests from homeowners that it will destroy their Charleston Heights neighborhood.

Southern Nevada Water Authority officials are opposed the highway-widening because of its potential impact on archeological features in the north well field that abuts U.S. 95.

The $300-400 million road-widening project is anticipated to take out 175 homes, 115 apartment units, 21 businesses, and one elementary school -- Adcock, said Roger Patton, a traffic engineering consultant with Louis Berger & Associates.

The Nevada Department of Transportation plan also calls for widening U.S. 95 north of Rainbow and the Summerlin Parkway to six lanes, connecting Martin Luther King to Industrial Road and widen to six lanes, as well as widening 12 other side streets.