An old challenge has reemerged for Talent: how to connect a roundabout that links West Valley View Road and Main Street to Wagner Street directly through the Talent Irrigation District property.

A $4.6-million state grant for Almeda Fire-related assistance will help revitalize part of Talent’s downtown area and includes funds to complete the connection. But the Talent Urban Renewal Agency and TID have yet to reach an agreement that could provide a right of way through the district property.

TID wants to work with the city, but a solution that involves either creation of a right of way through the property or sale of the site and relocation elsewhere has to work both financially and operationally for the agency, TID Board President Mike Winers said in an interview with the Rogue Valley Times.

“While TID wants to be a good partner …we have to consider it in a way that doesn’t raise the cost of water to our patrons,” Winters said.

“At the present time, there is no resolution to this issue,” TURA Executive Director and City Manager Gary Milliman wrote in a Dec. 4 report to Talent City Council. City staff and TID leadership have met on the street issue.

TURA built a roundabout in 2014 near TID as part of its West Valley View Vision to create better traffic flow through the town. The agency had hoped to negotiate with TID so it could connect to Wagner Street at Talent Avenue.

Maintaining current TID operations with a public road through the 2.9-acre property does not appear feasible, Milliman wrote. That concept is shown in detailed designs, and representatives of both groups had walked a staked-out roadway.

A different alignment of the Wagner extension proposed by TID would allow current operations, but is not consistent with the goals of improving traffic circulation in the West Valley View Plan area, Milliman reported.

The TID proposal would run the road on the east and south sides of its property, joining Talent Avenue between Gagnes Drive and Wagner Street. The city-created plan has the road joining Talent Avenue across from where Wagner Street ends currently.

“If we take it off the back of the property, I’m confident we could make (the route) work,” Winters said. “It may not line up exactly as they want, but the middle of the property is a non-starter.”

TURA has reached a tentative purchase and sale agreement with the owners for a piece of property across from the end of Wagner Street on Talent Avenue that would be needed for the road project if the city plan is followed. A sale would not occur until an environmental review is completed, Milliman said.

In early 2017, TID rejected a $1.5-million offer from TURA to purchase the site. At the time, district officials said the amount would not have been enough to find another site and build comparable facilities. Relocation of the current facility would have cost about $4.1 million at that time, TID estimated.

TID operates year-round, with maintenance work beginning once the water season ends. A move to a new location would need to occur at the end of the water season to keep things moving, according to Winters.

“We’d need a like piece of land, properly zoned, with the buildings and infrastructure already built so that at the end of a water season we can effect a move,” Winters said.

The city has offered assistance to TID to help with relocation to other sites.

Over the summer, city officials alerted TID that the former Fabricated Glass Specialties plant on Rapp Road had been sold to the Oregon Military Department. The department is planning to retrofit the plant for use as an equipment maintenance facility and might have had additional space for a partner, Milliman reported.

After meeting, TID and the military department determined a lack of space didn’t make the idea workable, Winters said.

Milliman noted that a joint use agreement that would have moved TID onto Jackson County Fire District 5 property just north of Talent has been suggested at one time. The proposal made in the fall of 2023 also included the city as a partner on the 6.8-acre site where the fire district headquarters are located. But the effort never went beyond the proposal stage.

Another proposal suggested by Milliman in his report to the council is that the city and TID might operate jointly under an agreement out of the city’s current public works yard, which is located off of Suncrest Road.

Oregon Housing and Community Services awarded the funds to cover two other projects. The funds came from the Planning, Infrastructure and Economic Revitalization program created from federal funds awarded for 2020 Labor Day fires rebuilding efforts. The projects are adjacent to each other.

One is redevelopment of the Talent Urban Renewal Agency’s Gateway site at West Valley View Road and North Pacific Highway. It currently has trailers that were moved in to accommodate fire survivors, but those are being removed, and the site will be developed under the grant for its original purpose of mixed commercial and residential use.

A second project will provide underground infrastructure, sidewalks and curbs for the Gangnes Loop neighborhood off Talent Avenue that was burned by the Almeda Fire.

City staff met with officials from OHCS and its consultant, ICF, on Wednesday, Dec. 4. The agency had wanted stormwater and transportation connection link plans developed in detail for all three projects, showing things such as future parking and building locations, by Jan. 7. The agency had sought the plans in order to begin an environmental review of the entire area.

“Recognizing it’s impossible to a design multi-million dollar, mixed- use project in a month, they modified the request,” Milliman told Talent City Council later that day. The new approach will allow for continuation of the environmental review work with conceptual plans and information that might include alternative locations for some streets

“We’d come back a later time after individual (site) development work and pursue detailed development plans for the project,” said Millian.

A City Council work shop will be held Jan. 13 to gather direction on configuration of the Gateway site and to consider the Wagner Road extension.

With funding in place, a project management team has been assembled. It will include Milliman and other city staff. Peter Town, grants administrator with the Rogue Valley Council of Governments, will serve as project grants administrator. Lucas Gowey with ZCS Engineering, who did early infrastructure and storm drain plan work, is on the team.

Overall project coordination services will fall to Matt Brinkely, owner of Green Top Planning, Development and Research. Brinkley is the former Medford planning director.