After 35 years of talk and planning, Popp’s Ferry Road soon will connect to the beach

It’s only a mile long, yet connecting Popp’s Ferry Road to U.S. 90 in west Biloxi should dramatically improve traffic and the economic picture for that area of the city, said Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich.

Biloxi Council is expected to vote Tuesday to accept the bid to award the contract and start work on the road project that’s been envisioned for decades.

Right-of-way acquisition, engineering, design and environmental impact studies are already done.

Once the bid is approved, the project will take a few months to get started, Gilich said, and about 24 months to complete. The contract includes a penalty and liquidated damages for thousands of dollars a day if the road isn’t complete on time, unless for an approved reason, he said.

Necaise Brothers Construction Company of Gulfport, which also is working in Biloxi on the infrastructure project along the beach, was the low bidder. The two bids received for the new road were within $28,000 of each other, Gilich said.

There had been talk of a connector road since the 1990s. “Two years ago it was identified as my No. 1 priority,” the mayor said.

The city received funds from Mississippi Department of Transportation and other sources to cover much of the project, but was $7 million short of being able to start. While interest rates were low the city moved ahead. “We borrowed some money to make it happen,” he said.

New road forward

The route for the Popp’s Ferry Extension was decided in 2016, after residents met with state and city officials to select which they thought would work the best for the neighborhood.

In 2016, the construction cost estimate was $8 million to $10 million for engineering, land and road construction.

Eight years later, the low bid to build the road came in at $20.87 million.

The new four-lane road will continue Popp’s Ferry Road south of Pass, between Walgreen’s and Burger King. It will cross the railroad tracks, veer west away from the Mississippi Coast Coliseum parking garage, then turn slightly east just before connecting to Beach Boulevard.

It will have an on-grade railroad crossing rather than a bridge over the train tracks, which would have cost millions more to build.

A pedestrian tunnel will connect the parking lots at the coliseum so people won’t have to cross the four lanes of traffic and the current traffic light on Beach Boulevard will move slightly west to the new road.

“Safety is a major deal,” said Matt McDonnell, executive director of the Coast Coliseum.

“Another ingress and egress is positive,” he said. He’s also concerned that when crews dissect the parking lot to put in the new road, the schedule of events at the coliseum and convention center is considered.

The road work also includes improvements at the intersection of Pass and Popp’s roads.

“It is a choke point,” Gilich said, especially when there are events at the coliseum and during hurricane evacuations.

“That’s all been redesigned,” he said.

Bonus benefits of the road

The extension of Popp’s Ferry is important for more than just traffic flow in that area, Gilich said.

Once Popp’s Ferry Road touches U.S. 90, he said, it will be eligible to be designated a state road. That could result in getting funds for the aging Popp’s Ferry Bridge and at some point for the Biloxi Beach Connector , linking all the way from Woolmarket, across I-10 to the Margaret Sherry Library and the beach.

The city already is seeing economic benefits from the new road, he said. The extension is a big reason why Rouses Market decided to open its new store to the intersection of Popp’s Ferry and Pass roads, he said, and why a Chick-fil-A is planned there. It also will improve access for the new Keesler Federal Credit Union headquarters, he said, bringing 1,500 jobs just down the road.

The Coliseum Commission owns most of the land on the east of the new road and land west of the extension will be open for development along the new road, he said.

“This is a result of planning and efforts,” he said, and like the recent completion of the main gate at Keesler Air Force Base, will bring big improvements to the city.

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