With at least one major tenant about to start building in the area, the Greenville City Council still needs to figure out how to provide adequate water and sewer service to the southwestern edge of the city.
The council is scheduled to convene in executive session during tonight’s meeting concerning the cost of infrastructure for the Interstate 30/Monty Stratton Parkway corridor. Should the council decide to take any action on the issue, it would return to the regular agenda to do so.
The council is also set this evening to consider a change in zoning for a new home for Primary Care Associates (PCA), which is wanting to build a 35-45,000 square foot office building at 4400 Interstate 30, at the intersection of Monty Stratton, with PCA as the major tenant and with space for smaller tenants as well. The goal is to have the property ready by the middle of 2017.
Last week, City of Greenville Building Official Steve Methven told the Planning and Zoning Commission the building will have access to a 12-inch water line nearby.
“We’ll have to bore up Monty Stratton to get water to them, but there is sufficient water for them there,” Methven said, adding the site should be able to accommodate a gravity sewer, without the need to build a lift station.
But a lift station has been in the works for the region for years.
The City of Greenville began acquiring land in 2014, which was needed to install the plumbing infrastructure to open up the corridor and surrounding area to economic development
The council voted in January 2014 to authorize professional services agreements with Freese and Nichols, for the design of a 1 million gallon per day lift station for the region, and with Stovall and Associates for the surveying and easements needed for the life station, as well as a sewer force main and gravity line.
At the time, City Manager Massoud Ebrahim explained the 38 parcels of easement needed to be obtained before moving to a final design for the lift station project, as the line was going to be 20,000 feet long.
In 1998, the City of Greenville annexed more than 4,000 acres, including property in the area along Interstate 30 between FM 1570 and the Monty Stratton Parkway, although sanitary sewer and water service was never installed in the region.
The region has been identified as having the most potential for future growth in Greenville, as development moves toward the city from the west.
Ebrahim has said the city needs to start installing the infrastructure now, if it expects to take advantage of interest from those wishing to locate along the corridor.
In October 2012, the council entered into a contract with Freese and Nichols for a preliminary study of the regional lift station, which revealed the work would include not only building and installing the lift station, but also gravity pipelines and force mains to run the effluent to the wastewater treatment station on the east side of Greenville.