Frontage road near Berkeley Hall to be finished next August, county officials say
Construction of the long-debated frontage road near Berkeley Hall on U.S. 278 could begin before the end of the year and should be completed by August, said Beaufort County leaders this week.
The work will create a new frontage road to connect Berkeley Hall to neighboring St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church and school as well as a Bluffton fire station on U.S. 278.
The project also includes a new traffic signal on the highway at the entrance to the fire station that will close the existing U.S. 278 median crossover and church entrance.
Beaufort County is negotiating with contractor JS Construction Services to complete the work as part of its already-planned improvements to the church and school's parking lot and access road, said county administrator Gary Kubic.
"Because it's a public safety improvement, we could negotiate and piggy-back the church's contract and increase the scope of work to put in place the road, storm drainage systems and all that," Kubic said.
This week, Beaufort County Council voted to waive its typical contract bidding procedures to award the contract to JS Construction Services. The exception will expedite the project, which has been crippled by a decade of fighting between the county and Berkeley Hall residents, including a series of lawsuits that cost both sides hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The county has more than $1.8 million set aside for the project, collected under the sales tax referendum approved by voters in 2006. All of the improvements are expected to remain within that budget, Kubic said. Administrators will present the final negotiated prices to council leaders before proceeding, he added.
In August, Berkeley Hall residents voted 315-4 to drop their legal challenges against the road in exchange for the addition of the $450,000 new traffic light at the fire station. The county will bear the bulk of that cost with the community contributing only $25,000 to the signal.
"Once the (traffic) light went into the plans, it eased the issues here; We're in good shape," Berkeley Hall General Manager Adrian Morris said Wednesday. "We're happy we're through to the other side of this process. It was long, but everyone seems to be on the same page."
Church members and school leaders are simply happy to move on with the project, which officials agree should remedy much of the dangerous traffic congestion at the church's entrance around school and mass times, said Monsignor Ronald Cellini, the church's priest.
Berkeley Hall, county and St. Gregory's leaders will host a ground-breaking ceremony for the project at 9 a.m. Dec. 15 at the church, Cellini added.
"The county and Berkeley Hall have been wonderful. It's a nice coming together," he said. "Goodwill came out (of the settlement) and we had a creative solution, and I think we're all the better for it."
Over the years
2000: The first inklings of a new frontage road are included in the original master plan for the Berkeley Hall planned unit development.
2005: Beaufort County and Berkeley Hall initially disagree about the frontage road plan.
2008: Beaufort County files to condemn land on Berkeley Hall property for the frontage road, spurring the community's initial lawsuit in the 14th Circuit Court against the plans.
2012: Berkeley Hall challenges the state-issued environmental permit for the road, creating a second legal action against the plans in the S.C. Administrative Law Court.
Nov. 2013: The expansion of U.S. 278 is completed without the planned frontage road, creating a new and dangerous U-turn for parishioners entering St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church from eastbound lanes.
Sept. 2014: State legislators step in to help broker a settlement. State engineers agree to add a stoplight at the entrance of the Bluffton Township Fire District Headquarters at the east end of the frontage road.
Aug. 2015: Berkeley Hall residents vote 315-4 to drop their legal challenges against the road in exchange for the addition of the $450,000 new traffic light at the fire station.
Follow reporter Zach Murdock on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Zach and on Facebook at facebook.com/IPBGZach.
Related content:
- Settled at last: Beaufort County, Berkeley Hall end frontage road fight, Aug. 17, 2015
- Legislators seek stoplight to halt Berkeley Hall, Beaufort County dispute, Sept. 15, 2014
- Catholic church breaks silence on Berkeley Hall frontage road plans, May 21, 2014
- Berkeley Hall, Beaufort County poised to go to court over frontage road, Feb. 22, 2014
This story was originally published December 2, 2015 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Frontage road near Berkeley Hall to be finished next August, county officials say."