LandMark Design Group was selected by the Virginia Department of Transportation, in the spring of 2000, to provide the design for the Princess Anne Road/Ferrell Parkway Improvement Project. Ferrell Parkway was renamed Nimmo Parkway by the City of Virginia Beach after we started work on the project. We are providing the following services: roadway construction and landscape plans, wetlands delineation, acquiring a Corps of Engineers jurisdictional wetland confirmation, acquiring all federal, state and local wetland permits, and locating and designing wetland mitigation sites to compensate for unavoidable wetland impacts.

The project is located in the southern portion of Virginia Beach near the municipal center and the Princess Anne Commons area. The project begins just south of Dam Neck Road, near the Virginia Beach Amphitheater, and ends at the Nimmo Parkway stub west of the intersection with General Booth Boulevard (near the Princess Anne Recreation Center). In 1999, we completed the Princess Anne Road/Ferrell Parkway Location Corridor Study for VDOT. This study set the corridor for the horizontal alignment of the roadway. The horizontal alignment for Princess Anne Road was also driven by the Princess Anne Corridor Study completed by the City of Virginia Beach and adopted by City Council. We designed the Ferrell Parkway portion of this project for the City of Virginia Beach approximately 10 years ago but it was shelved because of funding problems.

Why improve Princess Anne Road and construct Nimmo Parkway? A transportation study of the Princess Anne Road Corridor determined that current traffic volumes on Princess Anne Road far exceed the capacity of the roadway. Traffic congestion and increasing delays at the intersections reduces travel speeds. The proposed improvements will increase traffic capacity, decrease congestion and delay, provide for future traffic needs, and correct geometric deficiencies, including narrow pavement and shoulders , and deep roadside ditches. The Nimmo Parkway section of the project will route traffic around the historic Princess Anne section of the City.

The Princess Anne Road segment of the project begins just south of Dam Neck Road to Nimmo Parkway and includes the segment of Ferrell Parkway (Nimmo Parkway) from Princess Anne Road to Holland Road. The total length of this segment is 2.4 miles. The project will widen Princess Anne Road from a narrow two-lane roadway (Figure 1) to an ultimate eight-lane roadway with paved shoulders, a landscaped median, and multi-purpose paths on each side. We will design four lanes of the roadway initially. The median will be wide enough to allow for construction of the additional four lanes in the future. The 250 foot right-of-way section (Figure 2) allows for increased areas of landscaping for the gateway to Princess Anne Commons and the City of Virginia Beach Municipal Center. A 30 foot landscaped area including a berm, street lighting fixtures, and shallow drainage swales will separate the (Figure 1) existing Princess Anne Road roadway from the sidewalk.

This section of the project also includes the construction of Nimmo Parkway from Princess Anne Road to Holland Road on new alignment. Nimmo Parkway will be a six-lane roadway ultimately (Figure 2). Four lanes will be designed and constructed initially. The roadway will have space in the landscaped median to construct the two additional lanes in the future. The 230 foot right-of-way allows for a 50-foot landscape darea between the sidewalk and the proposed right-of-way limits. The alignment of Nimmo Parkway was set by the location of Kellam High School to the south and the (Figure 3) historic Burroughs House property to the north. (Figure 3) The design of the intersection with Holland Road is also included. To accomplish this, we are coordinating with URS who is currently designing the Holland Road widening to four lanes in the vicinity.

The remainder of the project is the construction of Nimmo Parkway, on new alignment, from Holland Road to the existing stub near General Booth Boulevard. The total length of this segment is approximately 1.8 miles. The right-of-way varies from 116 to 151 feet due to its proximity to existing neighborhoods and wetlands. The existing neighborhoods are near Holland Road and the existing Nimmo Parkway stub. The wetland impacts of most concern are those adjacent to West Neck Creek (Figure 4). All of the segments include four lanes with space in the median to construct two additional lanes in the future, curb and gutter instead of ditches for drainage, a multipurpose walk to the north, and landscaping and lighting fixtures to the outside. The subdivisions, wetland impacts, and an existing 30-inch HRSD force main drove the alignment. Currently, we are working (Figure 4) with VDOT, the City of Virginia Beach, and the Corps of Engineers to determine the bridge location and length. The West Neck Creek crossing will be between 1,150 feet (the minimum as determined by the hydraulics study) and 1,500 feet (increasing the width to the west to save some higher quality wetlands).

The environmental work was initiated in the summer of 2000. Presently the wetland delineation, Corps confirmation and survey of all of the wetlands impacts have been completed for the 4.2 mile roadway. The wetland delineation included areas of farm fields, fallow fields, mesic forest, freshwater marsh, and the associated floodplain along West Neck Creek. The Princess Anne Road segment of the project will impact 4.80 acres of wetland, and the Nimmo Parkway portion of the project will impact 10.89 acres of wetlands, for a total mitigation wetland compensation cost of nearly $2 million dollars.