By T. Scott Boatright
Ruston’s Board of Aldermen authorized the city to enter into an agreement with the city of Grambling related to the Tarbutton Road–Louisiana Highway 149 I-20 frontage road project as the City Council held its April meeting at City Hall.
“This development agreement provides for the city of Ruston and the city of Grambling participating in the construction of a new frontage road, which will begin at Tarbutton Road and end at Louisiana Highway 149 (R.W.E. Jones Drive in Grambling),” said city attorney Bill Carter. “The financed road will be a public road and will provide access to and from the Buc-ee’s Travel Center.
“It will begin on the westbound off-ramp coming off Tarbutton Road and continue westward. It will be constructed in three different phases. The first phase will end just outside the Ruston city limits. The second phase will begin at that point and run, apparently, to a midpoint between the western Ruston city limits and the eastern Grambling city limits.”
Carter said the third phase will begin where the second phase ends at the city of Grambling corporate limits and then swing northward to connect with Louisiana Highway 149.
“This agreement sets out the mutual responsibilities of both cities in connection with the construction servitude of the frontage road and will include different aspects such as road design, annexation, property acquisition, which will include fee titles as well as servitudes, construction phase services, maintenance after construction, funding, and sales and property taxes,” Carter said.
Phase 1 involves transforming the Tarbutton Road interchange from three to five lanes and constructing the initial service road leading to the Buc-ee’s property. Phase 2 involves plans to construct a two-way frontage road extending from the Buc-ee’s property westward toward the city of Grambling, focusing on expanding infrastructure for the 74,000-square-foot travel center, which hopes to open in early 2027.
Phase 3 would involve extending that two-way frontage road all the way to Louisiana Highway 149 and into the city of Grambling.
Mayor Ronny Walker said creating the frontage road came from directives from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
“This is something the state DOTD is doing — requiring us to finish this frontage road,” Walker said. “It’s very important that we do this in a timely fashion, which is why we brought this to you tonight to get that done.”
Phase 1 construction is ongoing, and Phase 2 engineering work has started.
“So, hopefully, I’m going to say within the next 12 months, starting the bidding process for Phase 2,” Walker said.
Walker said that, considering it will likely take a year for Phase 2 work to get started and that work will take a couple of years, the start of Phase 3 is still significantly down the road.
“I think we’re three or four years out before Phase 3 even starts,” Walker said. “They’re linear. You have to finish one before the next one starts.”
Ruston’s City Council also approved an ordinance amending the city’s Code of Ordinances related to nuisances.
The City of Ruston Code of Ordinances declares various conditions as public nuisances, primarily targeting health, safety and property maintenance issues, including overgrowth, junk vehicles and garbage. Violations can lead to city abatement, with costs assessed to the property owner.
“These are somewhat minor revisions to what our nuisance ordinance is and add the concept of health, safety and welfare in respect to any nuisance situation on a premises, as well as add the concept of when there’s a situation that affects property values,” Carter said. “It essentially also aligns better with the other code enforcement ordinances that we have.”
The City Council also approved a resolution authorizing the city to enter into a contract related to the East Line Avenue cross drain near Edgewood Street project.
“This project consists of replacing the deteriorated cross drain at that location around 704 East Line St., as well as replacing an existing brick manhole and removing a segment of the sanitary sewer line for better function of that sewer,” said city Public Works Director John Freeman. “On March 26 of this year, a total of three quotes were received, with the lowest responsible quote submitted by the Mabry Company in the amount of $90,350.”
The project is expected to begin soon and take no more than 45 days.
Also approved was an ordinance amending plans for the planned Russ Town Crossing housing development.
“Last year the city approved rezoning of property located south of Gaines Avenue,” Carter said. “Recently developers of that project decided there were two single-family residences that did not need to be part of the planned unit development. There is also one clarification concerning one piece of property.
“So, the purpose of this is to amend the property description to remove the two single-family dwellings because they have nothing to do with the new development, so this is clarifying that property description and helping approve a revised preliminary plan for that development.”
Ruston’s City Council also approved amendments to sections of the Code of Ordinances related to fire prevention codes.
“This amendment is needed for us to continue our fire prevention inspections throughout the city,” said Ruston Fire Department Chief of Fire Prevention Brad Hearne. “The state is changing and updating its code. It’s mainly an additional change to a code that hasn’t been updated since 1997. So this keeps us up to date with state codes and helps maintain our fire rating as well.”
