Mayor Wants Bermuda Run On Search Engines
Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 7, 2013
By Jim Buice
Enterprise Record
BERMUDA RUN – Wake Forest Baptist Health is building its West Campus hospital here.
But if you search on Google or another engine, you get Advance – maybe even Hillsdale.
Mayor Ken Rethmeier wants to change that.
At this month’s town council meeting, Town Manager Lee Rollins thanked Rethmeier for his work in trying to establish Bermuda Run with the 27006 Zip Code in relation to the Wake Forest Baptist Health West Campus.
“It’s a cumbersome process to say the least,” Rollins said. “Customers look at how to get to the Wake Forest Baptist Health West Campus on Yahoo or Google on GPS, and right now you’ll get Advance or Hillsdale.”
Rollins said that the mayor continues to work on the initiative and that Benchmark, a Kannapolis-based company that does planning work for the town, will work with companies on the Zip Code issue.
Rethmeier said that it is difficult to make progress because “there seems to be one company that is the holder of all the GPS data and no phone number.”
• When mentioning the deliberate pace of proceeding with the roundabout on US 158 entering Bermuda Run, town manager Lee Rollins said it was “sort of like going round and round, but we’re going to get there.”
He provided another update on the project, which has been slowed with federal funds being involved, in the Feb. 13 Bermuda Run Town Council meeting.
Rollins said that a request for qualifications to DOT-approved engineering firms was placed on the NCDOT website, and firms had until Feb. 5 to submit their letter of interest. He said that list was pared to two finalists.
“Right now we’re working with the evaluation process we have in place,” Rollins said, adding interviews were held with the two companies last Tuesday. “We should be able come before you in the March meeting with a recommendation to select a firm and move forward.”
The total estimated cost is $510,000 for the roundabout, which will be constructed at the Bermuda Run entrance across from BB&T Soccer Park. For its part, Bermuda Run is providing a 20 percent local match of $102,000.
Rollins said that the town would ask for a 90-day turnaround on design.
“Construction administration is a separate issue,” Rollins said. “Our goal is to begin construction at some point in the summer …