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County buys piece of land to extend FDR Boulevard
Roundabout to be built at Old Rolling Road
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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St. Mary's County government has to buy some private property in California in order to extend FDR Boulevard from Route 4 south to Chancellor's Run Road.
On Tuesday, the commissioners agreed to pay $75,000 for less than a half an acre at Old Rolling Road and the existing FDR Boulevard in the Laurel Glen subdivision.
The commissioners bought the land from the 235 Partnership (Andrew Colevas, Keith Allston and Philip H. Dorsey III) and the group donated some stormwater management ponds and other easements.
With the purchase, the county's department of public works and transportation will be able to build a roundabout intersection at Old Rolling Road and FDR Boulevard.
Liz Passarelli, property manager for St. Mary's County government, called it "another piece of the puzzle for FDR Boulevard."
She said, "Contrary to popular belief, FDR is moving along."
There are nine other properties left to acquire to finish this portion of the corridor, said George Erichsen, director of public works and transportation, and all of the owners have been contacted. "We'll be finishing that up over this year," he said.
FDR Boulevard is an $11 million project intended as a neighborhood connector route to alleviate traffic on Route 235 in California. If political will and dollars continue, the road could run all the way down to the Lexington Park library.
As originally envisioned in the mid-1980s, FDR Boulevard would have served as a high-speed parallel route to Three Notch Road, but now will be a slower route to connect neighborhoods.
"The roundabouts will tend to have the effect of slowing it down," said Commissioner Daniel H. Raley (D) of the traffic.
The Wildewood neighborhood built a portion of FDR Boulevard from Route 235, but it doesn't connect to Route 4 yet, because it doesn't own the land to get there.
The developer of First Colony built another span of the road, as did Laurel Glen. Then the road picks back up in Lexington Park at Millison Plaza, where it is a private drive.
FDR Boulevard, named after President Franklin Roosevelt, will come down through Amber Drive in the Hickory Hills neighborhood off Chancellor's Run Road to connect there as that road is expanded by the Maryland State Highway Administration.
