Green Park aldermen voted unanimously last week to pay $365,000 for two Green Park Road homes needed to complete the road’s planned redevelopment.

The two properties being purchased by the city are needed to allow for the construction of a right-turn lane at Green Park Road’s intersection with Tesson Ferry Road as well as the transfer of land to St. Louis County, according to Zella Pope, city administrator/city clerk. Because city officials are using a stretch of county-owned land in Clydesdale Park to widen Green Park Road, the city is compelled to trade land back to the county.

“This is also property for mitigation purposes for Clydesdale Park property that the city needs to complete the (Green Park Road) project,” Pope said.

Pope also said city officials have agreed to purchase a home owned by Robert and Joan Cooper at 9925 Green Park Road for $165,000. The property is appraised at $138,300, according to county records.

Green Park officials also will purchase a home owned by Meagan Kaiser at 9915 Green Park Road for $200,000. County records show that property is appraised at $118,800.

With the help of Mark Payken of Payken Consulting, city officials also are working to acquire a third home owned by Daniel E. Lanham at 9907 Green Park Road.

County records show that property is appraised at $118,500.

“Our consultant, Payken Consulting, is actually doing the mitigation regarding all of the properties, all of the temporary road easements and three properties and the park,” Pope said.

City officials have until Sept. 30 to submit designs to the Missouri Department of Transportation for the first phase of Green Park Road’s redevelopment or otherwise lose federal funding for that project.

The East-West Gateway Council of Governments in 2003 approved a federal grant funding 80 percent of Green Park Road’s original reconstruction cost of $2.4 million.

But the estimated cost to redevelop the road is expected to rise due to such factors as the city’s plans to construct a pedestrian pathway along the road’s north side instead of a sidewalk down the more residential south side and also because of estimated increases in construction costs over time.

Green Park Road’s first project phase will be along a 6,000-foot stretch from Tesson Ferry Road to Lin Valle Drive, according to preliminary plans.

The road will be widened with two extra feet of lanes on each side to make 12-foot lanes. Other improvements include the new pedestrian pathway along the road’s north side, the additional right-turn lane at the road’s intersection with Tesson Ferry Road and a new left-turn lane at Antrill Drive.

Preliminary design plans also call for eliminating drop-offs and ditches from the road and replacing them with vertical curbs on each side. Because the curbing would replace ditches on each side of the road, a storm sewer would be installed across the road’s length. The second phase of Green Park Road’s reconstruction will run from Lin Valle Drive and includes widening the Gravois Creek bridge.

City officials learned in June 2008 that they had to pay an additional $4,500 for an updated appraisal of the Green Park Road property to be redeveloped. The updated appraisal is required because of modifications that aldermen made in 2007 to the design plans to move the trail from the road’s more residential south side to the north side next to Clydesdale Park.

Aldermen voted unanimously in September 2007 to amend the city’s contract with the Weis Design Group for additional design services and to apply for a grant to help pay for those extra design services.

The city already had received a $4,000 grant from the Municipal Park Grant Commission to assist in the planning phase of a new pedestrian pathway along the road’s north side. Because of that decision, the city in 2007 was billed for additional design services by the Weis Design Group in the amount of $29,000, which brought the original budgeted cost of $200,000 to the engineering firm slightly above that benchmark to $201,914.

As for the properties to be redeveloped along Green Park Road, City Attorney Paul Rost last week told aldermen before they voted to accept the agreement that both sales’ closings would occur soon.

“This is the purchase of the properties needed at the end of Route 21 at Green Park Road,” Rost said. “The Cooper parcel, which is at the very end, which will be grading and right of way, will end up going pretty much up to the front door of the house, making it not very useful. That one is necessary for that purpose.

“The other one is to also have right of way and also be able to grade up to that house. And then also, as part of the conversion process, some of with the county for approval, which is required under federal law, we need to acquire that piece of property. The property owners are in agreement. And as soon as these are approved, closings will take place, taking care of those two pieces of property.”