Concord leaders explore way to improve traffic around Concord Mills

Robin Kanady
·2 min read
2
Concord leaders explore way to improve traffic around Concord Mills

CONCORD, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The bustling area of around Concord Mills is poised to get some upgrades, including a possible connector bridge to help people get around the city’s prominent corridor faster and easier.

There’s more to the Concord Mills area than just the mall itself, but getting down Bruton Smith Boulevard, which becomes Concord Mills Boulevard after crossing Interstate 85, can take a while in traffic.

“We heard from a number of people they may live next to a restaurant that they love but they can’t walk to it because they have to get in their car and drive all the way around the block, and we think we could work to improve that,” said Andrew Babb with consulting firm, Bolton & Menk Inc.

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The City of Concord hired the firm for what’s known as “THE BLVDS” study to get with businesses and people living in the Concord Mills corridor to find out what improvements can be made.

The consultant said at a recent city council meeting that they got 250 responses in the study, and one of the items that topped the list was a connector bridge.

Part of the plan includes building a bridge from the Concord Mills mall side on Quay Road over I-85 that would connect to Old Holland Road on the Great Wolf Lodge side headed toward Charlotte Motor Speedway. It would not add a new exit.

“The business community and the locals sort of identified this as something that they would like to see to have another way to get from one side of I-85 to the other without having to go through the existing interchange,” said Babb.

A new bridge over I-85 is one of the ways Concord leaders could mitigate traffic in the Concord Mills area.
A new bridge over I-85 is one of the ways Concord leaders could mitigate traffic in the Concord Mills area.

The study comes just a few years after the completion of a flyover from Concord Mills Blvd into the mall’s parking lot.

Other improvements include possibly adding more walking paths and splitting up the public transit service in the area. This could mean one route going to the rider transit center and a separate route moving up and down Concord Mills Boulevard.

The city paid Bolton & Menk $158,870 to complete the study, which includes a market analysis and traffic study for the area.

Babb said one of the ways to pay for all of this would be through what’s called a municipal services district. That would include a new property tax in the Concord Mills Boulevard area that would raise funds, and the money from that would have to go back into improving the corridor.

If you want to share your thoughts or just look at the new plan, there’s a public meeting on March 26 from 5:30-7 p.m. at Explore Cabarrus County at 10099 Weddington Road.

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