An agreement with River Hills Bank opens the way for the city to seek its final permit from the Mississippi Department of Transportation to allow construction of the Wisconsin /North Frontage connecting road.

“This is the first step in getting the permit from MDOT,” City Attorney Nancy Thomas said. “Once we get the permit, we’ll be ready for construction.”

Thomas said she did not know how long it would take for MDOT to grant the permit.

The project will link Wisconsin Avenue and North Frontage Road with a road crossing the remainder of the Battlefield Mall property and intersecting with North Frontage between River Hills Bank and the future site of Cannon Honda. The city has a $1.3 million Mississippi Development Authority capital improvement loan to build the road.

The agreement with the bank was necessary to get right of way across its property, which will be damaged by the heavy equipment building the road.

Under the agreement, the city will pay the bank an estimated $68,215.37 to repair the damage to the bank’s parking lot and entrance caused by the construction.

“This is a project that’s a long time coming, but it’s in the best interest and is the best economic development opportunity that we will ever have,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said. “This is the connector road to the back of ERDC (the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Research and Development Center), which has a $15 million facility under construction.

“It allows folks leaving the back of ERDC and living on Wisconsin to come around and utilize the frontage road to get to I-20.”

Plans for the road began in 2014 after a decision by the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission to rezone a 22-acre tract along North Frontage owned by JEBCO LLC, the parent company for Blackburn Motors, from C-4 commercial to planned use development, which opened the way for the road.

A planned use development, or PUD, designation allows light industrial operations, clearing the way for the city to apply for the MDA loan.

The road plans anticipate a possible move by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Research and Development Center to move the front of its facility from Halls Ferry Road to Wisconsin to reduce traffic on Halls Ferry Road. ERDC is building a new headquarters facility about midway on its property.

The new road will also open new property for development.

The JEBCO property encompasses the area that included the former Battlefield Mall. About 3 acres of the property along North Frontage Road west of River Hills Bank was bought in October by Bossier City, La.-based 3 Rednecks LLC, the lead ownership interest in Excel Honda, to relocate the dealership, which was later sold to Cannon Motor Co., and intends to move the Honda and Toyota dealerships on the property.