Council provides deposit to allow Twin Peaks Interchange to proceed
Posted: Wednesday, Mar 25th, 2009
By Chuck Barth
MARANA — The Marana Town Council has given the approval to spend $15 million to move along the bidding process on the Twin Peaks Interchange.
The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) failed to make a $15 million deposit into a locale government investment pool (LGIP) account with the state. The lack of a timely deposit could put the Twin Peaks interchange program on hold for at least a month.
Marana Town Manager Gilbert Davidson met with RTA Executive Director Gary Hayes last week to work on the problem. Davidson was not happy with the timing of the missed deposit.
He did say, however, that he was optimistic that the council’s actions, along with further discussions with the RTA, will keep the project on track with only minimal delays.
The winning bid for Twin Peaks came in about $15 million under budget. The deposit failure caused the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) to delay the awarding of the contract.
The town will make up for the missed LGIP deposit and the project should be back on track.
The town has already spent $14 million on acquiring land and obtaining permits for the project. Davidson said getting the required permits together was a large undertaking and timing was important.
