By JEFF FARRELL

Staff Writer

SEVIERVILLE — As expected, state officials told the Board of Mayor and Aldermen Monday there wasn’t a viable way of making Exit 407 serve the traffic that pours onto Highway 66 from Sevier County’s only interstate access.

Now, the city is looking at what do for traffic in the short term, and at what it must do to get a new interstate ramp. Those options include building a new ramp where the interstate passes over Douglas Dam Road to the west or where it passes over Bryan Road to the east.

Steve Allen, transportation director for the Tennessee Department of Transportation, said his department looked at four options for improving traffic flow at Exit 407. He addressed the board during a workshop Monday before its regular meeting.

“You’ve done about all you can do at that interchange,” Allen said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Any new interchange, he said, would have to connect to a state highway. That’s a requirement for any interstate exit. The possibility of having a new exit around mile marker 408 — at Bryan Road — has been discussed by city officials before. It’s also the route that would most easily serve developer John Turley’s Dumplin Creek project, as it would stretch from Highway 66 to Dumplin Creek Road.

But Allen and city officials noted that the connector would have to be built to handle the traffic and to serve the public — not just to the development.

The city and other local governments would have to pay for improvements to those connector roads, Allen said — those funds would not come from the state or federal level.

One alternative would be improving Bryan Road south to Douglas Dam Road/Highway 139, and improving East Dumplin Valley Road from Bryan Road to Highway 66.

Another would be to build the exit a mile west of 407, instead of east, and connecting it directly to Douglas Dam Road/Highway 139.

Whatever they decide, it will be at least seven years before a new interchange could be built.

“If you started today, you’d be looking at seven or eight years at least,” Allen said.

The state can offer some immediate aid, Allen said, in the form of safety funds that could be used to extend the ramp for eastbound traffic getting off the interstate. Because stopped cars can back up into the interstate, that ramp is eligible for funds that could be used to extend the exit lanes ferreter and put a barrier between those lanes and regular interstate traffic.

Mayor Bryan Atchley said the city also needs to look into ways of improving traffic flow in the short term, while they consider their options with the interchange and with connecting the roads.

"We've got to be somehow proactive," he said.

The board asked city personnel to collect more information on the proposals and present it at a workshop in January.

Turley also spoke to the board about the proposals, outlining again his plans and bringing along a representative of a The Shopping Center Group, a retail real estate brokerage representing several stores interested in the Dumplin Creek property.

Bill Long said several major retail chains have committed to stores at the Dumplin Creek site, but they are waiting to see if the infrastructure is completed.

Turley has talked about the possibility of an interstate exit at Bryan Road since purchasing the Dumplin Creek property. He had planned to connect pay for a road running from Highway 66 to Bryan Road be creating a special assessment district, which would have allowed him to obtain a bond and pay for it using what amounts to an additional tax on his property.

However, he told the board last month that financing isn't an option in the current bond market. He is asking the city to pay for the road, which he said would also serve as a connector to the proposed new interstate exit there.

Atchley summed up the dilemma for the board.

"Are we building a road to get out of town, or are we building a road into a development, or are they one and the same?" he asked.

The city would be setting a precedent if it build a road just to serve a development in that way, he noted.

The board at least has the option of presenting a proposal to the state for adding the road to the projects in the Central Business Improvement District, he said, but if the state approves it will more than likely to so without approving any new founds for that project.

"We're going to have to make a conscious decision," he said. "If we add a project, what do we remove?"

Building it, however, could help the city repay the CBID funds much more quickly. The district runs from the 407 interchange to downtown Sevierville. The city gained $200 million in bonds, which it is using on projects including Veterans Boulevard and the Events Center. It repays the bonds using sales tax revenues from the district.

So far, the city has made its interest payments using those funds — but eventually, its payments will balloon. Its long-term plans called for commercial development alongside the Events Center to help increase sales tax revenues, but that project has also stalled due to the recession.

jfarrell@themountainpress.com