ROSWELL, Ga. — The five-year-long, multi-million dollar extension of Roswell’s Oxbo Road may finally be coming to a close, according to the city’s new mayor.
Since 2017, the road, which connects east Cobb County to north Fulton County, has been under construction and full of “under construction” and “detour signs”. According to nearby residents, the project has caused numerous detours, delays and inconveniences since it started.
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Channel 2′s Steve Gehlbach spoke to some of the people who live in the area and have had to navigate around the closed road when trying to get from Georgia 400, Holcomb Bridge Road or Grimes Bridge Road to east Cobb.
“Before this, they would get home in 3-4 minutes,” said one neighbor. “Going around there right now takes about 10-15 minutes.”
“This looks horrible,” said Nora Strickland. “For our neighborhood, the church right there on the corner, it looks horrible.”
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Newly elected Roswell Mayor Kurt Wilson told Gehlbach he quickly realized the project needed to get finished and showed Channel 2 Action News where a new traffic signal would go and how the project will be laid out.
“I said, oh my gosh, this is something we have to fix and have got to fix it quick,” Wilson said.
The city said in 2021, an independent investigation of the Oxbo Road project revealed massive mismanagement and millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted. The project stalled after being roughly 1/3 of the way finished. The investigation revealed that even though the project was initially budgeted for $9 million, the cost jumped to $15 million.
Wilson said it will take another $3 million to get the long-delayed project finished.
“The return on investment of this $3 million compared to the $15.4 million is magnificent because this street matters,” Wilson said. “Oxbo Road matters.”
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The project is up for approval by the Roswell City Council at its Monday, April 11 meeting. City leaders and the project manager said the goal is to have the road finished by Christmas, 2023. Wilson said if the project is approved, work could begin sometime in May.
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