A decade of talk and study about connecting South Frontage Road to East Clay Street will continue for at least another two years — but signs are getting stronger the project is moving closer to reality.

The mere presence of marker stakes in the ground is great news to the biggest champion of the bridge, promoted heavily over the years as a shorter way to reach the hotels, restaurants and the major shopping venue on the city’s eastern edge.

“It’s vitally important for continued growth for this community,” said Margaret Gilmer, general manager of the Outlets at Vicksburg and a one-woman lobbying dynamo who has touted its construction as an economic driver since the shopping center was built in 1995.

Parts of territory eyed for a bridge over rail tracks deep below the brush lining the frontage roads’ intersection with Old Highway 27 have been staked and marked, meaning Mississippi Department of Transportation contractors are close to wrapping up a field review of the $12.1 million project. If rights of way are obtained by the state from private landowners and the railroad, a new roadway east of the tracks would continue past Jameson Inn, Cracker Barrel and the shopping center, then connect to the existing road that twists its way to the mall’s entrance at Berryman Road. Access from Old Highway 27 would be looped on a connector ramp.

Though its full construction is about $9 million short of realization, the design phase is funded through fiscal 2011 on the agency’s Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) for 2010-2013, a rolling four-year plan of sorts for highway work in Mississippi. No timetable for when actual construction could begin has been firmed up. MDOT officials contend the state is simply preparing the site as federal money comes available to blend a new overpass with efforts under a separate study to widen lanes and rework exits on Interstate 20 through Vicksburg.

“We’re making sure both projects sync, so to speak,” said Michael Arnemann, spokesman for Central District Commissioner Dick Hall. The larger plan to rework the interstate will remain on track and won’t be affected by work on South Frontage, he said, despite maps shown to the public in November depicting the South Frontage work happening alongside redesigns of three major interstate exits inside the city and possible traffic flow changes on both frontage roads. Hall has estimated costs of the I-20 reconstruction through the city at up to $1 billion. The environmental study and design phase is funded at $2 million through fiscal 2011 on the current STIP list.

Supporters say access to points east and west will improve if motorists can take South Frontage uninterrupted from East Clay to the commercial strip’s junction with Halls Ferry, another of the city’s busiest intersections. For Gilmer, even the smallest hints of the plan’s progress are exciting because it might free up the mall to redo its aesthetics and expand across eight more acres.

“I like to have my finger on the money,” Gilmer said of her years-long quest to shepherd the extension to reality — an effort that included several trips to Washington, D.C., with local elected officials and fellow members of the business community to lobby for infrastructure funding. “It’s finally going on without me really having to follow everything.”

Though the overpass might close Watkins Nursery Home & Garden Center if enough of the property is bought by the state, its operators support a quicker way across town that doesn’t involve the interstate.

“It would be good for the town, something that connects both roads,” said Eric Watkins, whose family has done business on the corner of South Frontage and Old 27 for about 30 years.

What irks Watkins — and many businesses up and down both frontage roads — is the looming process of right-of-way acquisition, which can involve eminent domain proceedings, and the specter of one-way frontage roads once Interstate 20 is completely revamped.

“It’s hard enough running a business without it all hanging over your head,” Watkins said. “I can’t imagine it around here with one-way (frontage roads).”

Kathy Hester’s On Target Golf Center of Vicksburg and the chipping range behind it are situated at the end of the current mall access road, on shopping center property and almost directly in the path of the proposed new crossing. Hester plans to move the business if the crossing demands the building be removed, a process in which she said the state should assist.

“As long as they pay me for my building, then they can come through it,” Hester said. “Then, I can relocate.”

Average daily traffic on Interstate 20 between Indiana Avenue and Clay Street, which bridges the same gap as the proposed extension, was estimated at 50,000 in 2008, according to MDOT. Also on the department’s list of local projects on the current STIP list are plans to connect U.S. 61 North to the Port of Vicksburg and to rework Mississippi 27 from the Beechwood intersection at U.S. 80 to Warren Central High School and Beechwood Elementary. The port connector road is pegged at $9 million, with rights of way not assured until at least 2012. Work on Mississippi 27 is expected to require property buyouts until beyond 2013.

Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com