Mission Boulevard will remain open during bridge construction over 71 Freeway in Pomona

POMONA - Weeks of waiting to learn how the city would build a bridge carrying Mission Boulevard traffic over the 71 Freeway without requiring a street closure came to an end this week.

The city has opted to go with its original plan and build a detour road along the north side of Mission Boulevard allowing cars to travel through the intersection while the bridge is built.

A consultant for the city made the announcement at a community meeting held Wednesday evening at Westmont Community Center.

Area business people, who first brought concerns of the road closure to City Council members in May, welcomed the news.

On Thursday Joe Kim, general manager of HD Supply Repair & Remodel, said that after the meeting he went to the store and shared the news with managers and other personnel.

"We were doing high fives," he said.

Kim, along with other area business people, learned in April that Mission would close for six to eight months to accommodate the bridge construction.

Last year Kim and other businesses were informed there would be no full closure.

Once business people learned Mission would be closed they went before City Council members with their concerns.

Among the principal concerns was that such a closure would severely impact their businesses when they are already being hurt by the weak economy.

Some small business people told the council the effect of the closure would be enough to force them out of business.

Kim said he still expects the store, formerly known as Contractors' Warehouse, to be affected by construction "but not as drastically as with a full closure" of Mission.

With a detour road in place customers will still be inconvenienced by construction but "I think it's going to be something more manageable to them," Kim said.

The store will still have to take steps to draw customers in who may think of taking their businesses elsewhere during construction, he said.

That could involve promotions, having sufficient personnel to assist them and other steps, Kim said.

Thomas Klugman was also at the meeting but he was more cautious.

Klugman represents the owner of the Mission Plaza, which encompasses several businesses and offices on Mission, east of the 71 Freeway.

Wednesday evening's meeting was encouraging, Klugman said.

"It's as close to a win-win for everyone involved," he said.

However, until agreements are signed with property owners along the north side of Mission nothing is completely resolved.

The city is now involved in negotiation with property owners, said Assistant City Attorney Andrew Jared.

"Those property negotiations are still on-going and the terms are still being negotiated," he said, adding the talks have been productive so far.

Once agreements are signed contractors for the city can begin moving forward on construction of the detour road, said Marla Doyle, acting public works director and city engineer.

As of early June the city had four possible options to work with, one of those being construction of a detour road.

"We looked at all the options and this was the quickest and most cost effective" option, Doyle said.

Closing Mission would have resulted in some savings but "not enough to justify the inconvenience to the public," she said.

The option calling for closing Mission was expected to reduce the construction period by a year and save $3 million to $4 million.

The construction project has a cost of about $40 million and involves construction of a diamond shaped interchange that includes on- and off-ramps in addition to the bridge.

Building the interchange is expected to play a significant part in easing congestion at Mission and the 71.

As for the savings in time, it's still not known how the delay will affect the timeline of the project, Doyle said.

At this point tentative plans call for starting construction on the bridge in October, she said.