The Conway city council approved the transportation department’s plans for the reconstruction of Nutters Chapel Road during its March 11 meeting. 

The project, which is not expected to overlap with the city’s Salem Road bridge reconstruction, will fix the lower half of Nutters Chapel running from Dave Ward to Salem. 

“The plan is to go in there, curb and gutter the roadway and close the storm drains,” Kurt Jones, engineering director, said. “It will be a 36-foot wide street section with two lanes of traffic and then bike lanes.” 

Jones said the project will also include sidewalks. 

The project received four bids from construction companies, Jones said. The low bid came from A & B Dirt Movers, based out of Conway, for a total of $1,510,029. 

When alderman Drew Spurgers asked Jones for his estimate of when the project will begin, Jones said, “Typically, from the time that we issue the notice of award until we actually get the contracts executed vary from two to four weeks.” 

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get started in four to six weeks,” Jones said. 

Jones also described what the transportation department’s plan would be during the construction itself. 

“The plan is we are going to close, not the entire section, we’re going to do half at a time,” Jones said. “Through traffic will be closed on one side or the other of this project.” 

Jones also conceded that many Conway residents will likely be frustrated with having the successive traffic projects. 

“The plan is to not have a whole lot of overlap between this project starting and traffic actually getting significantly affected on Nutters Chapel while Salem is still shut down,” Jones said. 

Jones said the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. 

The ordinance was approved 7-0. 

The council also announced that the cleanup liens requested by Conway Code Enforcement at its last meeting had been rescinded. 

“The code enforcement department had decided not to go forward and seek a cleanup lien,” City Attorney Charles Finkenbinder said. “By statute, a cleanup lien is not required to be sought by a city and a city can abandon a request for cleanup lien at any time.”

Property owner AJ Regester, who was in attendance at the meeting, was congratulated by some members of the audience for his previous presentation which disputed the lien.  

Only one alderman, Theodore Jones, was not present at the meeting. 

The next city council meeting is scheduled for March 25.