Developer begins work on mile-plus road to relieve Lake Norman-area traffic snarls
Heavy equipment has carved out a major east-west thoroughfare in Mooresville near Lake Norman, which promises to bring much needed traffic relief.
Town officials and representatives for the road’s builder gathered Monday to mark the start of construction. Norman Village Road will stretch from Timber Road and N.C. 115 to Deerwood Lane and U.S. 21.
“Anywhere in southeastern Mooresville” — including the Lowes headquarters to work — this is the road you will want to take,” Mayor Chris Carney told The Charlotte Observer Monday.
“This is not only going to become a great mover of people, it’s going to be a great thing for our first responders,” Carney said about the $18-million, more than mile-long two-lane road.
Drivers will be able to avoid the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks in downtown Mooresville, Carney said. Notorious backups occur daily at the tracks.
And the road will shorten travel from the lake to Interstate 85 and Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, by diverting drivers from the daily backups at Brawley School Road, West Wilson Avenue and U.S. 21 and other Mooresville intersections, Carney said.
Mooresville BTR Developers began clearing land in early December, David Coble, consultant for the developer, told the Observer. The road is expected to open by year’s end, project officials said.
“This road had been on the town’s comprehensive transportation plan since the mid-’90s,” Coble, a former Mooresville town commissioner, said. “So this represents a major traffic-alleviation project for the town.
Original projections called for the road to alleviate about 35,000 to 40,000 trips from near West Wilson Avenue into and through downtown Mooresville, “so this is going to be a major traffic improvement for the town,” Coble said.
Last year, the state awarded the Charlotte-based Centralina Regional Council a $15 million grant to pay for most of the work, Coble said. The developer is paying the remaining $3 million. Mooresville BTR Developers is a subsidiary of LandSouth, which is based in Jacksonville, Florida.
The developer agreed to build the road as part of the town’s approval three years ago of its planned development of 253 single-family homes and 300 apartments.
The development will add $225 million to the Mooresville tax base, officials with the developer said.
“Think of it as a mini-Morrison Plantation,” Coble said of the large mixed-use community at Brawley School and Williamson roads further west in Mooresville near the lake.
The Sentosa of Lake Norman apartments will be built in phase one of the development, while the single-family homes in three subsequent phases, Mooresville Planning Board documents show. The single-family homes community will be called Reflections of Lake Norman.
Turn lanes will be added on U.S. 21 and N.C. 115 at the new road, and two railroad crossings will be improved, officials with the developer said.
