By Karen Cimino Wilson .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Cabarrus County will receive $6.5 million in federal stimulus package money for local road improvements that include repaving a portion of Interstate 85 and moving and widening a road near Lowe’s Motor Speedway, according to the N.C. Department of Transportation.
Cabarrus County will receive $3.5 million to improve Morehead Road just south of Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, according to the state.
The plan is to move a three-quarter-mile stretch of road away from the speedway’s southern edge, making more room for vendor trailers along the speedway property. That will reduce the number of people crossing U.S. 29 on foot, said Concord Mayor Scott Padgett.
“It will help with traffic flow especially during race times because it will separate pedestrians from cars,” Padgett said. “It’s a plan they’ve been working on with (the Department of Transportation).
“It’s still a step in the right direction to eventually help with all the traffic in that area,” he said.
The N.C. Department of Transportation received $838 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law on Feb. 17. The state will spend $735 million for highway and bridge improvements and $103 million for transit.
Padgett said the work is expected to generate about 50 jobs.
“This is the only construction project that we would be getting,” Padgett said. “The other one was paving of Interstate 85. That’s nice, but to get some real construction, even thought it’s a small project, it’s still a step in the right direction to eventually help with all the traffic in that area.”
Cabarrus County also will receive $3 million in stimulus money to repave I-85 from N.C. 73 to U.S. 601/29.
Padgett said he wishes some of the other projects along Bruton Smith Boulevard and Concord Mills Boulevard were further along in the planning stages so they could be funded, too. The projects that received stimulus money were projects that were “shovel ready,” he said.
Speedway owner Bruton Smith and Concord and Cabarrus officials have discussed ways to speed improvements to road serving the speedway and Concord Mills. Smith offered to loan Concord and Cabarrus about $60 million, but he wanted it repaid too quickly, city and county officials said. The government officials wanted to repay it over several years through tax breaks.
“The big thing that needs to be done is to make improvements to the area around the I-85 bridge and Weddington Road,” Padgett said. “There’s been so many different plans thrown out but none of it’s been engineered yet. You would be talking millions more than this project. That would have been the ultimate if there were already an engineered plan for that. That would have been the most desirable.”
Lowe’s Motor Speedway officials could not be reached for comment.
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