North-South Road drivers, beware: Road construction won't end any time soon

By David Carkhuff

There's no escaping road construction in North Conway, not even on the popular North-South Road.Especially on the North-South Road, as it turns out. A pair of big-box store developers one building a Lowe's home improvement store at the Mountain Valley Mall, the other preparing to open a Home Depot home improvement store north of Settlers' Green on Barnes Road will guarantee that traffic cones remain a common sight on the North-South Road.Built by the state in 2002, North-South Road was designed as a local traffic improvement aimed at relieving congestion on neighboring Route 16. But today, the pressure of commercial development has transformed the southern end of the road into what will feel like a perpetual construction zone.Last fall, backhoes trenched out a detour so drivers could skirt the construction site of a roundabout, a traffic circle with exits being built in lieu of an intersection with traffic lights.The detour remains in effect, and the east entrance to Mountain Valley Mall is closed. A crew has begun paving the roundabout itself. At the mall site, ground has been cleared for a Lowe's home-improvement store. Lowe's is expected to open this fall, developer KGI of Boston reported. Work on the roundabout should be finished by June 30, according to Paul DegliAngeli, public works director for Conway.The main exit out of Mountain Valley Mall onto North-South Road will feed into the roundabout. A smaller, southern exit out of Mountain Valley Mall onto North-South Road will become an exit-only, right-turn-only exit. The town wanted to stop motorists from darting back and forth from the mall to Wal-Mart through oncoming traffic.After the roundabout is built, motorists can look for construction of turn lanes and possibly a median on the North-South Road to accommodate increased traffic spurred by another development a new Home Depot poised to open north of Settlers' Green.The developer of Home Depot, Rob Barsamian of OVP Management, originally gave the town $1.1 million in anticipation of building a second roundabout, this one on the North-South Road at the intersection with Common Court connector, the east entrance to Settlers' Green. That plan fell through. Property owners were unable to come to an agreement on easements, so the northern roundabout at the east entrance to Settlers' Green was abandoned in favor of a simple T intersection with a right-turn only restriction coming out of Common Court.Ultimately, the selectmen scuttled any chance of using eminent domain to force through the second roundabout. So Barsamian has given the town $250,000 as a security to build the right-hand-turn-only lane at the intersection with Common Court.Town staff and selectmen, filling the role of middlemen in complicated and often messy negotiations by developers over easements and land acquisitions, planned to talk to Barsamian to see if he could increase his contribution for expanded road improvements, including a median from Common Court to the roundabout.