Ramp relocation could open Willow Park development

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Willow Park-area residents look at a map of the proposed relocation of westbound Interstate 20 exit ramps at Mikus Road and Ranch House Road at a public meeting in January. If all goes as planned, construction could start in the fall. CHRISTIN COYNE/DEMOCRAT PHOTO

February 9, 2012

Christin Coyne CNHI The Weatherford Democrat Thu Feb 09, 2012, 01:17 PM CST

WILLOW PARK — Plans to move two Interstate 20 exit ramps in the Willow Park area are moving forward.

If all goes as expected, construction is expected to begin this fall, as the westbound exit for Mikus Road/Farm-to-Market Road 5 is moved east by less than a mile.

The Texas Department of Transportation and an area business owner involved with the project say the “ramp reversal” is expected to help with safety issues and provide better access to portions of the service road in the Willow Park area for future development.

The primary reason for the project is safety, TxDOT Area Engineer John Cordary said.

Particularly at the Mikus Road exit, they have noticed vehicles backing up during peak periods of traffic, creating a concern about backups on main highway lanes.

The existing westbound exit ramps at Ranch House Road and Mikus Road — built with the highway around the 1970s — will be removed and new ramps installed several hundred feet east of where they currently exist, according to plans, which have been in the works for several years.

The Mikus Road exit currently connects with the service road between Crown Lane and Mikus Road. The planned exit would connect to the frontage road around the area of Stagecoach Trail.

Each ramp project is expected to cost about $2 million and funding has only been allocated for the Mikus Road exit project.

The exit at Ranch House Road would be similarly moved when funding is found, according to plans, though no date has been set.

After a public meeting held in January and a comment period that ended Feb. 3, TxDOT will gather the comments and package them with the environmental documents and present them for review by various agencies, including the Federal Highway Administration, Cordary said.

A few residents did voice concerns about the project, according to to Cordary.

Several businesses located off the service road contacted by the Democrat Wednesday said they were unsure of how the project would affect them.

If the project is cleared to start, they hope to start construction by the fall and complete it within eight months.

“It opens up almost a mile of commercial access for Willow Park,” Jim Martin, who has been involved with the ramp project for about three years, said.

Martin’s company put up nearly $2 million in escrow to fund the Mikus Road ramp relocation project and sold nearly 80 acres of land in October, which would gain better access from relocated exit ramps. A planned apartment complex and future retail development would be located in the area between where the current and planned Mikus Road exit ramps move traffic off the highway.

The upscale housing project is targeted to health care professionals. In 2010, Texas Health Resources purchased about 30 acres in the same area but told the Democrat several months ago that plans for the land had not been finalized.

Part of the requirement for THR was easy access for emergency vehicles, according to Martin.

As well as solving a safety issue already showing up at the Mikus Road intersection during the evening rush hour as commuters arrive back from Fort Worth, Martin said he believes moving the ramps is vital to opening up the land-locked area for commercial growth.

“It opens up an entire corridor for development that wasn’t there,” Martin said. “So much of our interstate frontage is in the floodplain.”

“It’s been a real work in progress,” requiring the cooperation of the City of Willow Park and TxDOT, Martin said of the initial phase of the project. “It took some time but we got it done.”

A similar ramp relocation project for the eastbound lanes for the same intersections has also been discussed for some point in the future, Cordary confirmed.

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