FAIRMONT — State highway officials are looking at ways to speed up the opening of the 1 1/2-mile long Gateway Connector Highway from downtown Fairmont to Interstate 79.

One idea calls for opening the new I-79 interchange and stripping out a number of extra features, like a bicycle trail, park, antique street lights and other design elements to cut costs.

State Street and State Street Extended could also be “beefed up” to handle the increased volume of traffic from the interstate until more federal money is available to build the road as planned, officials said.

“If we had all the federal money we needed, it would take about two years — about two construction seasons —to finish the rest of the road,” as planned, State Highway Engineer Marvin Murphy said.

Murphy said the four-lane, divided access road could open in late 2010 if that were the case.

Changes in its design will also have to be approved by the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) because the federal government is paying for 80 percent of the road’s cost, he said.

The state Division of Highways plans to finish the interchange next year, Murphy said.

All that’s needed is some design work as well as finishing touches on the exit and entrance ramps, plus final grading and then paving of the ramps, he said.

The interchange completion contract will be let early next year, he said. DOH engineers estimate it will cost about $7.9 million, an agency spokesman said.

Murphy said the job may take a construction season, or at least several months after the winter weather breaks.

Meanwhile, work to widen the interstate to three lanes in each direction for a mile on each side of the new interchange is set to be finished by May.

A decision on opening the interchange won’t be made at the earliest until next spring, Murphy and other officials said.

An obvious concern, he said, is how to handle the increased volume of traffic on local streets on the East Side.

“We’ll be looking at what we think we could allow,” on local streets like State Street and State Street Extended, he said.

“Of course, we’ll be looking at the situation with our federal partners,” in the FHWA, he said.

Another reason for opening the interchange, even if it is for local traffic only, is that the DOH doesn’t like building “unusable” sections of highway, Murphy said.

“There’s not any requirement that we have to put it into use right away, but we want to use (the sections we build) as much as we can,” he said.

Also in the spring, the DOH will be looking at awarding a contract to begin work from the east end of the High Level Bridge to Columbia Street.

Engineers want to start there at the new road’s lowest elevation next to the Monongahela River because catch basins for stormwater have to be ready as the new road climbs Palatine Hill to the interstate.

The award of that contract also depends on how much money is available, Murphy cautioned.

The latest agency estimate for that contract is about $4.8 million, a DOH spokesman said.

The agency now owns all the property covered by that contract, said Rogers Craig Stevens Jr. It also owns all but eight to 10 parcels of the land from Columbia Street to the old State Street School, he said.

A realty transportation manager with the state Transportation Department, Stevens said the state has bought 162 parcels of the estimated 242 needed, or 67 percent of the land needed.

The state will have made initial offers to the owners of the remaining 80 parcels by early next year, he said.

According to figures kept by Marion County Assessor Jim Priester, the state has spent $14,264,848 to buy the 162 parcels.

The average cost per parcel to date is thus $88,054, but Stevens and Priester said the average cost figure is deceptive.

“We have a whole lot of parcels that cost a whole lot less than that,” Stevens said.

The state buys the land and houses and businesses on it based on a fair market appraisal, he said.

Priester said he’s seen prices “from probably $900 clear up to $200,000.”

“Obviously, there are different size parcels involved,” he said. “Some had houses on them, some didn’t.”

U.S. Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.) has been obtaining the 80 percent federal share, supplementing appropriations in the traditional six-year federal transportation bills with annual earmarks.

A Fairmont native and now a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, Mollohan, supported by city officials and business interests, has been pursuing the road since 1991 to revitalize the city’s downtown.

One of the steps was a decade-long push to obtain $24 million to restore the High Level Bridge itself. The renovated bridge opened in 2000.

In the latest six-year federal highway bill, Mollohan has $17.6 million for the new road.

But in the last two years, Mollohan has been stymied in obtaining hefty earmarks to speed its construction. Controversy about Mollohan’s use of earmarks to support five non-profits he helped to start in the 1st Congressional District and tighter spending controls adopted by the new Democratic majority have slowed the earmark process.

In the current transportation bill for fiscal 2008, Mollohan has a $1.5 million earmark for the road. President Bush is threatening to veto the transportation bill which has been coupled with the federal housing and urban development bill.

In other developments, work has started on a new $2.466 million 911 communications center for the county.

The county’s present emergency communications center on State Street Extended lies in the path of the new road.

Flint Construction Inc. of Gassaway is building the new one-story, brick-and-masonry center just off Pleasant Valley Road on the other side of the new interchange.

The 5,600-square foot building will have an emergency operations center that can seat 25 people, said Carolyn Ledsome, the center’s director. The new center will take about a year to build, she said she has been told.

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.