Clogged interchange blamed for driving down real estate deals

STATESVILLE — This month, when the North Carolina Department of Transportation announced a project to rework the interchange between Interstate 77 and Interstate 40, Jerry Alford was ready to celebrate.

Alford, manager for Statesville-based general contractor L.R. Wooten Building Co., said traffic jams caused by the interchange are a threat to real estate deals that could take place in the area.

“When we are working with clients and they are looking for space to lease or land to build on in our area, they comment to us about how terrible the traffic is,” he said. “It is something we have to overcome in order to get people to do deals.”

Thanks to the NCDOT project, relief appears to be on the way.

The department plans to redesign the interchange, which is about 40 years old, into a multileveled one between the two interstates. The project also calls for widening I-40 from four to six lanes from N.C. Highway 115 to Old Mocksville Road and adding a “diverging diamond” interchange at the intersection of U.S. Highway 21 and I-40.

“This diverging diamond will eliminate the signal for left turns onto I-40,” said Marty Plyler, an NCDOT engineer. “Each phase of the intersection has a certain amount of time to allow for turns onto the interstate, and they will be coordinated to keep traffic flowing.”

Plyler said NCDOT’s aim is to eliminate the long lines of vehicles that form almost every day at the intersection as drivers wait to turn onto I-40.

John Cook, NCDOT resident engineer, was more succinct in summing up the expected impact of the project.

“People making a left turn will no longer back up traffic,” Cook said. “There will also be lane-widening, and the ramps that go to and from I-77 will have a total realignment.”

The $89 million project will be handled by San Antonio-based contractor Zachary Construction.

Brooke Gibson, a broker with the Charlotte office of Pennsylvania-based Hart Corp., is among real estate industry officials who are glad to hear about the project. Hart specializes in sales and leasing of industrial buildings.

“We have customers in the Statesville area and the northern part of Mecklenburg County who have distribution centers and who are always concerned about the transportation network in the area,” Gibson said. “Every minute they can shave off the travel times for their trucks is another dollar they save.”

Gibson said Hart mainly works in secondary markets, like Statesville and Mooresville. But the company has some customers who lease space or had space custom built in Mecklenburg County, she said.

“The traffic from that intersection has been a concern for our customers in the past,” she said. “And whenever I take clients for a tour around the area, they do ask me about traffic counts and the access to interstates.”

Gibson said the interchange between I-77 and I-40 is viewed as a positive — in concept, anyway — for most clients who come to the area to check out potential commercial sites for light-manufacturing and distribution centers

“Sometimes they are cautious when they learn about the level of traffic in that area, because you have two major roadways there,” she said. “Because I-77 is a north-to-south road, and I-40 is an east-to-west road, you can really get almost anywhere in the region from that interchange and from there to almost anywhere in the country.”

But Gibson said the interchange is old and most people know about its reputation for congestion.

According to the NCDOT, the interchange was constructed in the late 1960s and built to handle about 5,000 vehicles per day. But, on average, the daily traffic count is roughly 70,000 vehicles.

The NCDOT projects the interchange’s traffic will grow to 110,000 vehicles per day by 2035.

Gibson is hoping the interchange project will help Hart land more clients in Iredell County and the northern part of Mecklenburg County.

“This will probably help us with industrial clients who are looking at sites in the area,” she said.

Alford, too, is looking for the project to bring much-needed business his way.

“We are having a very slow year,” he said. “The economy was hurt by the recession, and for us it really hasn’t shown any signs of recovery. The construction side of our business has been very off, and when this project gets going that might mean some more work for us because people may notice the area more.”

The company has about 20 clients who are leasing space in the area and have been with the company for many years, he said, adding that five of those were added this year.

“We just hope the project goes well for them, and they get the interstates working together smoothly,” Alford said. “Our clients do not like having to wait on those roads. Every minute increases their labor cost, fuel costs. Really, it raises all their costs, and that makes people want to do business somewhere else.”

For those who can’t wait for the project to be finished, it’s not going to happen overnight.

The scheduled completion: March 14, 2017.

BAUGHMAN can be reached at [email protected].