By LESLEE BASSMAN, Four Points News

The current timeline for the RM 620/RM 2222 bypass project is for construction of its first phase to begin this fall, with completion in mid-2020, Texas Department of Transportation Public Information Officer Diann Hodges said. The second phase is expected to begin construction in the fall of 2019, with an anticipated completion in mid-2020, she said.

“We are still awaiting environmental clearance which is anticipated to happen later this spring,” Hodges said. “Following clearance, the project will be put out to bid.”

She said TxDOT is in negotiations with adjoining landowners for right of way acquisition to make way for the project. However, these negotiations are not delaying the project’s timeline, Hodges said.

TxDOT representatives made an offer last month to adjoining landowner Nancy Bui whose company, New Corridor Development, purchased a 28-acre tract in 2005 that is planned to be bifurcated by the bypass project, said BOE Consulting president Bobak Tehrany, a traffic engineer hired by New Corridor. Bui’s plans for the property including constructing a 115,000-square-foot shopping center, for which she has already received permits from the city of Austin, he said.

“We are trying to pull together documents, land planning exercises, to show the type of impact that the bypass has on this property,” Bobak said. “We are trying to show a before scenario, without a bypass, of what the property could be developed for based on current entitlements, versus (what the bypass) does to the property and its ability to be developed to its highest potential.”

He said TxDOT will not allow any access from the bypass to the property, limiting the site to one entrance off RM 620.

Jason Borkland, co-owner of adjoining landowner Heritage Body and Frame-Four Points, 11051 RM 2222, stated in a Feb. 6 email to Four Points News that, citing a possible conflict of interest, he cannot comment about the project since his business and property is affected by the proposal.