The Foucek house was recently was demolished and makes way for Orchard Town Center, a 52-acre retail development center.
Billy WoodsEDWARDSVILLE – While trees come down and the land is cleared in preparation for Glen Carbon’s Orchard Town Center, an item below ground may put a temporary wrench into the plan.
On Tuesday, the last item on the agenda for the city’s public services committee was to approve an ordinance to vacate an easement at 2399 Troy Road and dedicate a new one. Alderman Chris Farrar was absent.
“This is what is known as the Foucek property, where Menards is going in Glen Carbon,” said City Engineer Ryan Zwijack, as he stood beside the projected image of the site to explain to the village’s request to the aldermen. “We currently have [an active] six-inch water main that runs [north-south] through the center of the parcel.
“They are asking us to relocate the water main along Troy Road [instead] so what you see in front of you is to vacate this,” he said, pointing at the current easement, “and dedicate that easement,” he said, pointing to the map at the proposed alternate easement. “That’s an important main for our water system,” Zwijack continued.
The alternative would snake around the small commercial area on the northwest corner of Center Grove and Troy roads, where the former Wonder Bread site was, then run north along the western edge of Troy Road, beneath driveways leading into Orchard Town Center before wrapping around the north edge of the site and ending at outlot #5, not far from where the north end of the current easement is now.
“So why wouldn’t we have voted on this before they started clearing [the land]? What if we would say no?” said Alderwoman Elizabeth Grant. Public Works Director Eric Williams answered that voting against the issue would potentially cause a significant redesign of Orchard Town Center.
“If Orchard Town Center were an Edwardsville project, it would not be going this route,” Zwijack confirmed. “We would have required a preliminary plat and that all public infrastructure be installed before final platting.”
“As part of this relocation, we’re asking them to upsize it to an eight-inch water main,” Zwijack said. “That cost difference, as of right now, they’re asking us to pay it, just the difference in material.”
Grant asked if an eight-inch main is better than a six-inch one. Zwijack told her their water flow would be better with the larger pipe.
“At their expense or they’re charging us for that?” Grant asked.
“If we just told them, ‘Keep it at a six-inch,’ that would be 100 percent on their cost,” Zwijack said. “We have asked them to increase it to an eight.”
“My recommendation is that because this has some impact in Ward 7 that [the cost would be on the village] if we say ‘Yes’,” Grant said. “That is not okay. This is a favor to them.”
“I agree,” Morrison concurred. “I say we go back and say we want that as part of the project.”
Morrison asked if all of the turns in the proposed easement would have any detriment to the water flow compared to a direct shot across the property it has now.
“Every bend has a pressure drop at a certain velocity,” Zwijack said. “But the velocities we’re running through here wouldn’t affect that.”
“If that [the alternate easement] bothers the flow, whose ward does that bother?” Grant asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yours,” Morrison said.
“One of the first plans they sent us, they wanted to do was cut [the main] at both ends, do all their dirt work and put it back in the same spot,” Williams said. “We told them we can’t leave that main out of service for that long. You’re going to have to find some other way to keep it live.”
Their only other option was to relocate and originally, they wanted to move it over just a few feet, he added, keeping it within the project’s interior.
“Ten years down the road, when someone’s marking a water main to tap into for irrigation, they’re going to see a blue line and not know whose main they’re tapping, so we told them we wanted the alternate easement out of their development,” Zwijack said.
Williams said the original easement would become a poor spot for his crews to maintain into the future, running right through the development’s parking lots. Putting the pipe in a separate easement on the site’s western side is impossible due to topography – wetlands and other issues – so going east was the only alternative.
He said the proposed alternate easement would work to maintain it operationally, but Morrison questioned whether they wanted it on the perimeter. Public works said unanimously that they don’t want a city water main near a village water main for safety and other reasons and they don’t want their main to remain running through the site.
“The way this would be done, you’d never know any change in service,” Williams said. The two lines would be live simultaneously before the original line would die, leaving just the alternate line live.
Zwijack said beyond the alternate easement, the city would need to get a license agreement with Madison County Transit for a water main on the south side of Center Grove Road as the water main is on its property, and an EPA permit. The village will have to begin the permitting process.
In the end, the aldermen agreed to hold the item in committee.
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