By MICHELLE WILLARD Post staff writer

When construction began on Medical Center Parkway in 2003, Murfreesboro officials envisioned the roadway as a new "Gateway" into the city thanks to a proposed Manson Pike exit on Interstate 24.

The parkway was completed in the spring of 2005 just a few months before the interstate exit was finished in July, 2005. When the planning and construction began, there were no firm plans for development along the new corridor.

"What the city did was really to prime the pump," explained Rob Lyons, Murfreesboro assistant city manager. "The city built Medical Center Parkway and the interchange to facilitate development."

However, with no firm development plans, the city couldn't properly design improvements when it originally built Medical Center parkway, said Joseph Aydelott, Murfreesboro planning director.

So a basic four-lane road was designed with the idea that developers along the new corridor would be responsible for changes, access points and turn lanes.

While the new parkway was still in the construction stage, a 400-acre farm, referred to as the Lane property, was purchased by Kentucky developer C.M. "Bill" Gatton, who envisioned a mixed-use commerical development on the area. Gatton sold 100 acres of the land to Faison Enterprises and Cousin Properties for The Avenue Murfreesboro, an open air shopping complex.

Phase I of The Avenue is expected to open late this summer. Also under construction is a new Embassy Suite Hotel and conference center.

"They would not have located to our community without the road there first," Lyons said.

"(The Avenues) were required to conduct a very detailed traffic study about how that development would affect traffic on Medical Center Parkway," Lyons said. The study required additional right and left turn lanes and traffic signals, among other suggestions for controlling traffic.

Those upgrades are now under construction, which is a frustration to some city taxpayers
like Matt Woodruff, a resident of the Cason Lane area, who expressed his frustrations and concerns about poor planning in building a road that needs improvements only two years after it was completed.

But private developers are paying for most of the improvements, not taxpayers, stressed Lyons.

Aydelott said the city wanted to avoid mistakes made on nearby Old Fort Parkway where the roadway and access roads were built in anticipation of development resulting in poorly coordinated individual projects.

"The objective is to have a unified design for the street that is well-coordinated," Aydelott wrote in an e-mailed response to Woodruff.

"Now that we have two major developments progressing along Medical Center Parkway, we are able to install the street improvements to fit them rather than retrofit them," Aydelott wrote.

"If the city would have done it on the front end, it would have cost more city money," Lyons said, adding this approach has ensured most of the road improvement cost is passed along to developers and that the resulting road will be more manageable.

The city will install six traffic lights and pay for some of the median modifications. These are the only parts of the project funded by Murfreesboro taxpayers, Lyons said.

"This will be paid back in the first two years. … These developments are expected to generate $52 million for the county general fund and school system and $57 million to the city general fund and school system within the first 10 years," he said.

Aydelott said, "We do regret the inconvenience to those who use the street. … However, it is our objective not to have to repeat this type of reconstruction in the future."

The construction will be complete no later than Aug. 1, in time for The Avenue Murfreesboro's opening.