GREENSBORO--Crews continue working to complete the Greensboro Urban Loop, a project aimed at improving traffic flow inside the city.
There are four sections remaining in various stages of the construction process that will complete the final 15 miles of the 44-mile loop around the city.
The first planning meeting for the Urban Loop was held in the mid 1990’s.
"I got involved in it because when we bought this piece of property here at the corner of Cotswold and Battleground.”, Ken Conrad, Libby Hill Seafood Restaurant’s Board Chairman said. “It was five-point something acres and we knew that the loop was going to come adjacent to it. I wanted to see how it would impact it."
Conrad’s father opened the first Libby Hill restaurant more than 60 years ago, and he wanted to make sure the business would continue to succeed.
"I went to the traffic engineers,” Conrad said. “I went to the city engineers, the state engineers to see exactly what the preliminary plans were and two could I run a retail business."
Once he was satisfied with the plans, he decided to relocate the restaurant to the land that’s just feet away from a construction site.
The Western Loop is under construction right now. The works runs from Bryan Boulevard to Battleground Avenue.
"I'm pleased with what's going on,” Conrad said.
Developers say a portion of the construction began in 2013 and should be completed by 2018. Right now, contractors are working on what’s called “structure construction.”
"That's primarily going to be their focus, to get those bridges done and complete, and then they will make them tie into the roadway portion to go with it,” Patty Eason, a division construction engineer, said.
She said the work is on schedule.
"They're about 25 percent complete, maybe even a little,” Eason said.
Eason said the total project is going to take about 20 years to complete. Right now, there’s more than five years left.
The long time frame is the result of several factors, from planning to environmental concerns.
"Then you have the public meetings where you have alternatives and different routes evaluated,” Eason said.
"And I will say something in the planners favor, they have become more and more cognisant of the fact of how they're traffic patterns affect retail business,” Conrad said.
Conrad said he couldn’t be happier with how the plans are unfolding.