A showdown over funding for a land bridge connecting the north and south sections of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve over Rio Verde Drive for animals and hikers could be brewing.
Construction on the $35 million project is scheduled to begin in July 2027, but there has been talk on the Scottsdale City Council’s Budget Review Commission to push it back to some unknown future date to coincide with improvements scheduled for Rio Verde Drive in the area of the bridge.
“To have this as a stand-alone project, it’s a big number ... administratively there is also going to be at some point a road widening that is just off the planning horizon right now for the widening of Rio Verde Drive and just intuitively and having done some research on it the costs change dramatically if considerations like this are incorporated into another bigger design project,” Commissioner Brad Newman said during the commission’s March 21 meeting.
