Construction on Riverfront Park delayed

By JODY MURPHY
PARKERSBURG — It will take steel to begin construction of the city’s Riverfront Park. However, governmental red tape is holding things up, according to one city official.

City Development Director Ann Conageski said construction on the park likely won’t begin until the fall. Conageski, who months earlier anticipated construction on the park beginning this spring, said the city is waiting on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to sign the cooperative agreement for the park.

City council approved its end of the cooperative agreement at the end of April.

“Once we get the cooperative agreement signed, the first thing the Corps is going to do is order the steel,” she said. “The lag time from the order to the time it gets here is 12 to 18 weeks.”

Conageski said the hope is the Corps will buy the steel at the same time it puts bids out for a contractor. However, nothing will happen until the cooperative agreement is signed.

“There is some kind of glitch with the cooperation agreement,” Conageski said. She said the glitch stemmed from language involving the implementation of the Water Resource Recovery Act. Conageski said the implementation language is under review and has been for almost three weeks.

Beth Cade, community planner and the Riverfront Park project manger for the Corps of Engineers, said the project received its authorization from the Water Resources Development Act.

“In that authority our headquarters had to issue guidance on how we are to proceed,” Cade said. “There are about 750 projects in that act and Parkersburg is in there.”

The Riverfront Park project is a 50-50 match project between the city and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Each side is expected to come up with about $5 million.

In addition to a Section 108 loan for $2.1 million, the city also received a $3 million grant from the state. Conageski said if the cooperative agreement isn’t signed by October, the project will lose the $3 million grant from the state.

“I understand that and we have made folks up our chain well aware of that as far as the city’s concerns with funding,” Cade said. “We are very mindful of that deadline and we will do everything we can to meet it.”

Until the Corps officials sign the agreement Conageski said there is little the city can do other than complain.

“I just pester the Corps once or twice a week,” Conageski said.

Conageski said she’s sent a complaint letter to Steve Stockton, deputy director of the Civil Works for the Corps.

“I’m getting a little bit anxious as we are getting to summer and I don’t see the agreement. ... The Corps can’t do anything until they have the cooperative agreement.”

Cade said the Corps is working on the agreement everyday and hopes to get it in place this summer.

“It is Huntington’s (Corps of Engineers’ office) No. 1 priority,” Cade said. “ Sometimes it takes a little time to go through the process.”