The project to improve two major thoroughfares leading to the Country Club of Jackson will get under way in spring.
Improvements to St. Andrews Drive and Brae Burn Drive were initially proposed to be done before the Sanderson Farms Championship, which was held earlier this year at the country club, but the decision was made to delay the work until after the tournament just to be on the safe side and to ensure traffic flowed smoothly during the tournament should the project have taken longer than expected.
Perhaps the project could have been completed in November, given the mild weather, but the best scenario for the neighborhood and the contractor is to wait until spring to start, said Breck Hines, president of the Country Club of Jackson Homeowners Association.
“It’s a substantial project that requires time,” he said. “We need it to be done right.”
Hines expects pre-construction meetings will be held in March and the work will start in April.
JXNWater has already inspected the sewer lines using a camera and will need to make repairs in “a couple” of locations, he said. The locations where repairs are made will be covered with gravel until the tilling and paving is done.
“JXNWater will be part of the pre-construction meetings,” he said.
The project includes more than 6,000 linear feet of curbs and gutters, which will be replaced as needed. The two streets will be milled and receive an asphalt overlay.
The curb and gutter replacement is needed so that water flows along them to the storm drains and doesn’t pool in them and in the street, causing the roadway to degrade, Hines said.
Hinds County received $1.5 million for infrastructure improvements in District 1 from the Legislature and that’s what will pay for street and drainage repairs at the Country Club of Jackson.
Hines expects the project will cost “north” of the $1.5 million the state allocated. He expects to ask the One Percent Tax Commission for financial help with the additional cost, he said, and if that’s not possible to reduce the scope of the project.
Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law Senate Bill 2468, an annual appropriations bill with a total of $820,375,000 in expenditures this year. The bill included a total of $227,375,000 to fund local projects throughout the state.
The project is about more than the Country Club of Jackson neighborhood, Hines said.
“Every week there are five or more events at the country club that bring people from across the state,” he said. “Coming to the facility may be their only experience in Jackson. This is about Jackson presenting itself in the best possible way.”
