By John McLoone

PRESCOTT – The City of Prescott will head back to the drawing board to look at alternatives for an alternative north-south route after discussion at Monday night's Plan Commission meeting.

Pricing for the planned road to move traf – fic from Highway 10 to Highway 35 along the south end of the city ranges from about $11 million for a two-lane road to $16 mil – lion for a four-lane corridor. The big culprit in the cost is a 1,000 foot-long, 100-foot high bridge that would have to be built over a ra – vine on the planned route that was included in the city's Comprehensive Plan.

The road where it was platted to be built would also impact future development of a third phase of the Great Rivers subdivision developed by the Most Family Partnership. Talk about the planned arterial road com –

menced again in May when the Mosts intro – duced a conceptual plan for 49 new lots in the development.

A suggestion at that time was expansion of 1200

th Street about a half mile to the east as the new corridor. However, Mayor Rob Daugherty said that's not a safe option.

"We talked (at the May plan commission meeting) abut 1200

th Street being an alter – native. In the wintertime, that's not a viable alternative. That's not a good road," he said.

David Hovel, who was appointed by Daugherty to serve on the planning body when his term as mayor ended, suggested a route that would run north-south between the mapped corridor and 1200

th Street. He also floated the idea that the city could assess part of the cost of the road project to developers.

North-South route The north-south route planning goes back to 2003, Greg Adams, an engineer for Cedar Corp. said. City Administrator Matt Wolf said that one problem with having this dis – cussion now is that the road may not be put in for 10-15 years.

"The hardest part of this discussion is we have no idea when this will happen," he said.

The platted route heads south from Coun – ty Road F and Highway 29/35 on the north side and runs to Hollister Avenue where it then jogs down to Highway 35. There is also a proposal to keep heading south to Highway 35 and not utilizing Hollister which abuts the Great River subdivision and its future phase.

Using that route to cover the large ravine to the north of the Great Rivers subdivision would require a bridge the scope of which is hard to find a similar one in Wisconsin, said Adams.

"The big limitation is getting across that ravine," said Adams. "It is approximately 1,000 feet to span that ravine." The price for a two-lane option, with about two-thirds of it being bridge cost, would be $15,984,300, while the two-lane road would cost $10,959,050. And that's if it's built to – day.

"There's not a comparable bridge pricing to that," said Adams, noting that there might be a similar bridge of the same length outside of Madison, but not at the 100-foot height.

"This is a tough one, with the nature of this bridge," said Adams.

If it's built a decade or more down the road, expect the price to increase at 8-9 per – cent annually, Adams told planners.

"It's really hard to say what's going to happen in 15 years. Who knows? Maybe the state will all of the sudden have grants," said Daugherty. "But you can almost guarantee if it happens 15 years from now, it's going to be a much higher price." When asked if the city could fund the project, Wolf said there would have to be a few more revenue pieces in play, like greatly increased debt service, higher property taxes and possibly special assessments.

"We could special assess part of it," he said. "In 15 years, our debt picture is diuerent than it is now. It's hard to say how it would be paid for. Today if we were to pay for it, it would be very divcult." The city's annual general fund budget is around $3 million, Wolf said in an answer to a question.

Hovel suggested looking at special assess – ing development lots, like those planned in the Great Rivers subdivision.

"Part of that demand that's put on the city should be paid for by the developer," he said. "Maybe we assess each lot a percentage. That's a lot of money, but we do need a way to go from north to south of town." Cedar Corp. and city stau are going to look at what needs to be done to investigate a road ease of the existing platted arterial.

"Do a study and developers can pay a por –

tion of it," said Hovel.

At the end of the meeting, the plan com – mission gave conceptual approval to the new lots in Great Rivers subdivision to keep their plans in motion. The city will start to investigate – again – where the arterial should be.

In the only other item of business at the meeting, John Peterson was voted as vicechair and would run meetings in the absence of Mayor Daugherty.

The next plan commission meeting will be Tuesday, Sept. 6.