June 5 is the official start date for the Route 107 construction project in Coral Bay, and Dec. 1 is the targeted completion date.
Federal highway officials met with Turnbull administration representatives late last week to set the dates and the terms for the project. St. John administrator Julien Harley said the highway officials gave an extensive presentation on the rules and regulations for the road project.
The V.I. government agreed to allow the contractor 3-O of Puerto Rico, to store gravel and some construction-related equipment on a government parcel near Route 10 (Centerline Road) in Estate Carolina. There are also plans to use an area near the old Sea Breeze Restaurant to store large boulders. Harley said those boulders may be brought to the site by barge, so as to prevent wear and tear along Centerline Road.
Local workers will soon be able to apply for jobs at a trailer set up along the construction site. Laborers, carpenters and masons may be eligible for road crew assignments. Two local subcontractors, whom Harley did not name, have also reportedly signed up for the project under the federal government's Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program.
Harley and Ira Wade, Public Works Department deputy commissioner for St. John, were hoping to persuade the Federal Highway Administration to reallocate a small portion of the Route 107 highway funds for improvements along Route 108/Bordeaux Mountain Road. But Harley said Monday that this no longer appears to be a possibility. "They can't write it in," he said.
The badly deteriorated condition of Bordeaux Road — an unpaved stretch along a developing residential community — was one of the issues raised at a January public hearing before Public Works Commissioner Harold Thompson Jr.
Harley said there is still a possibility that Bordeaux Road could receive some minor improvement if the V.I. government can find ways to help the Federal Highway Administration save money on the Route 107 project.
Route 107 covers the distance between Coral Bay and the entrance to the V.I. Environmental Resources research station at Lameshur Bay. Some portions of the road may be closed during the project, Harley said. But if contractors decide they have to close the route, he said, they will try to do it in the mid- to late-evening hours, and the community will be given seven to ten days' notice, and emergency service vehicles will be placed strategically along the affected route.
