Mullan BUILD Project Construction in Missoula Continues
Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The rapidly expanding Mullan Road area (the Mullan BUILD Project) will see construction resume in the next week and will continue through June.
KGVO News spoke to Missoula County Public Works Director Shane Stack this week who provided details of the project that stretches from Mullan Road all the way to West Broadway.
The Mullan Build Project will Finish up Connecting Streets in the Area
“There are roundabouts at the intersection of Mary Jane and Mullan Road and George Elmer and Mullan Road,” began Stack. “Mary Jane actually is a new road connection to Mullan Road now and actually you'll be able to drive from Mullan Road to Broadway or vice versa on Mary Jane now, which you weren't able to do before. Flynn Lane has become that secondary roadway and Mary Jane has now become kind of a primary road.”
Gutters and Paving work will Continue through June
Stack said the bulk of the heavy lifting has been completed, and the finishing touches are being put on the road construction project.
“We are around 80 percent complete with the project and really only have a handful of items remaining to finish up,” he said. “We've got curb and gutter and paving on England Boulevard between Flynn Lane and George Elmer and once that's done, basically kind of the heavy lift items are pretty much done. We're also going to be working on lighting on both of the roundabouts, the Mullan and Mary Jane and Mullen and Georgia Elmer roundabout, but will likely not have any traffic impacts related to that work.”
Stack acknowledged that hundreds of new homes and apartments are being built in the rapidly expanding Mullan Road area.
“I think we're ahead of the growth though,” he said. “With the roadways that we'll have completed this summer we’ll have the potential for quite a bit of growth to happen or occur without really any too much more effort as far as road network construction. There will probably be some small connector streets constructed but just with the work we've done now we'll be able to accommodate quite a bit of growth.”
Stack said the plans for the Mullan to West Broadway area also include open space in addition to homes and apartment complexes.
SXwTPQYEN is a Salish Word for the Mullan Area
“The city and county were smart about this and put the SXwTPQYEN (Salish word for the Mullan area) plan together for that area, tried to be really thoughtful about what that area should look like as we see the growth and we are experiencing the growth. I can tell you this when I was out there every week last summer on that project and there is plenty of vertical construction for residential units going up. So but there's still remains a lot of untouched ground out there. But I would imagine you're going to see more of that growth this summer.”
The Mullan BUILD is an acronym that stands for ‘Better Utilizing Investments Leveraging Developments’
A press release from the county states:
‘Missoula County received a $13 million federal BUILD grant to construct a new infrastructure network in the Mullan Road area. The federal grant, coupled with $8 million of local funding from the City and County, will support the first phase of the Mullan BUILD project construction. A network of streets will be built to improve connectivity and provide access to current and future homes and businesses. The BUILD project will ultimately play an integral role in how Missoula grows.’