By T. Scott Boatright
Ruston’s regular City Council meeting will be held next week after being pushed back because of the recent Fourth of July holiday.
But that didn’t stop the City Council from calling a special meeting Monday night at City Hall with one agenda item that was approved by the Board of Aldermen.
That item saw the City Council approve a resolution authorizing the City of Ruston to acquire property and to institute expropriation actions necessary for construction and completion of the I-20 Frontage Road — Tarbutton Road to LA 149 — Phase 1A project in the city of Ruston to be used for the Buc-ee’s Travel Center off Tarbutton Road.
City Attorney Bill Carter said the special meeting was called because of timing.
“We wanted to get ahead,” Carter said. “We only meet once a month, typically.
“When you’re looking at these projects and the months involved to complete them, and we’re looking at possible weather delays, we thought that this special meeting was a good idea. We thought about having one last month.”
It all involves ongoing negotiations with the property owner to acquire the land to build the service road on.
Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker added that it was all about working to meet a timeline.
“We’re trying to expedite it,” Walker said. “We’re just trying to meet their timeline of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. We have a very strict timeline that’s set up by our engineer and DOTD, and that’s what we’re trying to make sure we meet.
“The thing is, we have Phase 1B, which is being worked on now, and 1-A, which we talked about tonight, and Phase 2 and 2-B. When I look at that timeline, it scares the heck out of me because we’re really pushing up against the clock because we have federal funds that have to be spent within a given time frame or we’ll lose them. So we have $6 million in an earmark that we have to have obligated, which means we have all of the plans ready and already signed off to do it.”
Carter called passing the resolution a standard procedure used on the seven other service roads Ruston has built over the years.
“We get an appraisal, we use the same appraiser,” Carter said. “He appraises a property and we make an offer based on that appraisal. I don’t think we’ve had to file any expropriations.”
Phase 1 of the Frontage Road Project aims to transform the Tarbutton Road interchange from three to five lanes (work that has already been completed) and construct the initial eastern part of the service road leading to the Buc-ee’s property, while 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.
And Phase 3 involves extending that two-way frontage road all the way into the city of Grambling.
