A potential land swap between the city of Owensville and a local landowner would keep Springfield Road open and allow LSC Communications to expand its printing plant as proposed.

Owensville aldermen were holding a special meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday which includes an executive session to discuss a real estate matter as allowed under state statute. Aldermen held a closed session April 23 where the same real estate matter was also discussed. No votes were taken in the April 23 closed session.

Owensville Mayor John Kamler said the city is negotiating with John Paul and Nancy Quick over a potential land swap which would be used for creating a bypass road around the proposed building site where LSC Communications hopes to construct a  60,000-square foot, $2 million addition to its printing operation.

“This idea came up quickly in the last two weeks,” Kamler told The Republican on Friday. “It’s just a proposal so far. We’re going to try to make it work. We’re looking to trade (property).”

As presented earlier this year in a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, LSC’s addition would require the city close Springfield Road where it crosses the old railroad line and connects with Old Highway 19 — a frequently used route to Highway 19 and the school’s complex. The western end of Industrial Drive would also be closed off to accommodate the footprint of the printing plant’s expansion.

The Quicks own property west of the LSC complex which borders the railbed easement and Springfield Road. The city owns several smaller tracts of land bordering the old Rock Island Railroad easement including where MFA once had a granary behind City Hall and behind the current police station adjacent to Luster Park.

Those two tracts are among potential offerings the city could make in an effort to obtain a half-acre of ground needed to construct a new 1,000 foot section of roadway to bypass LSC’s proposed construction site. The new roadway would use an easement granted from LSC to come across the printer’s parking lot and connect with Old Highway 19.

If this arrangement is agreeable, LSC officials have pledged to offer fill material from their construction site for the city to use to build the thousand-foot section of new road’s base to connect with the LSC parking lot. The city would bear the cost of the rock to complete the new road bed and the paving, according to Kamler.

The city’s engineering firm, Archer-Elgin, provided a drawing of the proposed new roadway on Thursday.

Kamler said LSC officials were “definitely agreeable to that” plan as it has been presented. “They’re behind it,” said Kamler.

Aldermen have a public hearing scheduled Thursday via the Zoom meeting platform to obtain public comments on the proposal to close Springfield and Industrial at the site of the LSC expansion.

The potential for a land swap, and creation of a bypass for Springfield around the printing plant’s expansion, would likely eliminate the concerns most people have expressed. Closing Springfield would be, city officials realize, a considerable inconvenience for area residents who regularly use that route to travel back and forth to the schools or to head north.

In their initial presentation to city officials in late February, LSC management had already agreed to create a route through their site to allow emergency services vehicles — such as fire, ambulance, and police — access to connect from Springfield onto Old 19.

The closing of the western-most section of Industrial Drive, it was reasoned, would lessen the routing of truck traffic through town as access to the industrial park would be restricted to Commercial Drive off of Highway 19.

Kamler said last week the Quicks were receptive to the proposal. John Paul Quick had voiced concerns about closing Springfield at the Feb. 24 hearing conducted by P&Z commissioners when LSC first made their pitch to expand.

Kamler said the Quicks are agreeable to this latest plan “as long as they can get an equitable swap.”

And, the mayor added, Quick previously stated he was in favor of the printer’s expansion but he just didn’t want the road closed.

“He hasn’t wavered on that,” said Kamler.

A call to the Quick’s residence Tuesday morning seeking comment for this story was not returned as of late Tuesday afternoon. The city’s attorney did not respond to an email.