Brentwood Boulevard Repaving: Not Until 2015?

Did St. Louis County promise the city of Brentwood it would repave Brentwood Boulevard when the Highway 64-40 project was finished?

Two years after the completion of the Highway 40 reconstruction project that used Brentwood Boulevard as a detour, public officials in Brentwood and the county have different opinions on that question.

Ward 4 Alderman Tom Kramer said Brentwood Boulevard took a beating during the time it was a detour, and is in bad enough condition to be repaved in 2012, but it’s not scheduled until 2015. He said then-director of public works for St. Louis County, Garry Earls, “notified/asked” the city if it could be used as a detour.

“Mayor Kelly, with the affirmation of the board of aldermen, spoke for the city in negotiating a return of Brentwood Boulevard to as good or better condition than when The New I-64 started,” Kramer said. 

The June 19, 2006, Brentwood Board of Aldermen meeting minutes, supplied to Patch by Kramer, reads:

Mayor Kelly stated that he communicated to Mr. Earl, representing the City, that under the idea of helping the project move along and understanding that people will be
inconvenienced during that process, if they have to make some adjustments they will be willing to do that. That if they went ahead with the restriping they would want a written guarantee that as soon as the Highway 40 project is completed, they will resurface the roadway and restripe it back to its current lanes. He stated that Mr. Earl agreed to that.

"Only with the confidence of our blessing, that they would re-stripe the roadway on the southbound lanes, did they decide to go forward with that," Kramer said.

Earls disputes Kramer's claims.

“I made no such promise,” Earls said in an email to Patch.

David Wrone, public information manager for the county highway department, said he’d be interested in seeing documentation from the city of Brentwood to verify its insistence that such a pledge was made.

“St. Louis County has never made such a promise, either orally or in writing,” Wrone wrote in an email to Patch.

The county's traffic department is responsible for salting, plowing and paving Brentwood Boulevard. The road was given a micro-surface asphalt coating and restriped to add an extra southbound lane between Highway 40 to Manchester Road to be a detour during the second phase of the highway project in 2009.

Earls said smaller roads the county took over from municipalities during the work, for detours, such as Clayton Road in Ladue and the east half of McKnight Road in Brentwood were repaved. County arterials, though, such as Brentwood Boulevard, aren't treated the same.

Arterials are repaved on a “worst–first” basis. They are graded on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst. Brentwood Boulevard is a 5.3, according to the county Highways and Traffic department. Sheryl Hodges, the department's current director, said the road’s problems are aesthetic rather than structural. She said the county will get to Brentwood in its turn, or when the resources are available.

One possible source of funds for repaving could have been available before 2015, but didn't pan out.

Brentwood Mayor Pat Kelly chairs the Hanley Road Corridor Transportation Development District (TDD) Board, which includes Brentwood Boulevard.

It had looked like an extra $500,000 in the fund might have gone toward repaving the road, but at the Dec. 21 meeting of the board, representatives of the law firm Gilmore & Bell stated that Brentwood Boulevard was never eligible to receive the funds.

If St. Louis County finds additional funding to repave Brentwood Boulevard, it could happen sooner than 2015, Wrone said.

Not all Brentwood residents, or businesses, may want a big road construction project in 2012 though.

clock- and watch-maker Michael Grayson said people can get to the shop from many different directions, but he still worries about traffic tie-ups discouraging business traffic. He said he’d lean toward the work being done in 2015.

Frank Papa, owner of , listed off Brentwood Boulevard improvements he said have happened since 2007 and said it hasn’t been a fun five years.

“Let businesses get established, then fix it again,” he said. “The road needs to be maintained, but don’t ruin the businesses at hand. As a business person, 2015 would be OK with me.”