FAYETTEVILLE — Work is set to begin at the end of the month on a flyover bridge in north Fayetteville that has been on wish lists for decades.

The flyover is a curved overpass allowing drivers traveling north on College Avenue to cross above southbound lanes to westbound Fulbright Expressway to Interstate 540 or enter the commercial area at Shiloh and Mall avenues near the Olive Garden restaurant.

The city announced it will issue a notice to proceed with the project Jan. 28.

Its been perceived as a need from locals for two decades and in the Fayetteville planning process and the regional planning process for a decade, going back to about 2001. Its not just a Fayetteville traffic issue. Its kind of a regional issue, said John McClarty, a senior planner at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission. That has been one of my dreams for 20 years as a resident of Northwest Arkansas and Fayetteville.

Getting from College Avenue to I-540 at the Joyce Boulevard intersection has been the bane of drivers near Northwest Arkansas Mall. The move now requires an awkward and inconvenient U-turn from College Avenue back to the expressway. Traffic is often backed up in the area.

The turn has become increasingly difficult over the years as the area around the mall has developed. City Engineer Chris Brown said at least a quarter of all northbound traffic turning left from College Avenue makes the U-turn at Joyce.

The College Avenue and Joyce Boulevard intersection is one of the busiest in Northwest Arkansas, according to city officials and the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. The traffic count on College just north of Joyce is 39,000 cars a day. College Avenue south of Joyce is estimated to carry about 52,000 cars a day. Joyce has 25,000 cars west of College and 28,000 cars east of College.

Alternate routes are few and far between. Those that do exist take motorists well out of their way.

Mayor Lioneld Jordan said Van Asche improvement and eventual improvement to Rupple Road will give drivers another way to access the commercial area without having to get on I-540.

The citys largest sales tax generator is in that mall area, Jordan said. The easier it is to get traffic in and out of there, the better it is for the city.

Business owners have said theyre glad access issues are being resolved, but theyve also questioned why the project took so long to begin.

Jeff Arthur, general manager for the Courtyard by Marriott at 600 E. Van Asche Drive, said Thursday the hotel is in a highly visible spot, but a location thats difficult to get to by car.

This is going to increase traffic flow past the hotel, Arthur said. Management hopes to increase lunch and dinner sales at the Courtyard Cafe Restaurant.

Brown said engineers and city officials spent several years studying the area and determining which projects to include in the Expressway Economic Development Corridor. Once design began in 2008 and 2009, it took a lot of time to complete an environmental assessment and to get an additional access point on the Fulbright Expressway approved through the state Highway Department and Federal Highway Administration.

Its just a function of the length of time it takes to comply with the state and federal government, Brown said.

He said hes confident work will go smoothly once construction begins.

I think people will be very surprised how quickly it moves forward now, Brown said.

Emery Sapp & Sons, from Columbia, Mo., was the low bidder on the project. The $6.3 million contract allots about 17 months for construction. Completion is expected in mid-2014.

Crews with Emery Sapp have begun putting up construction signs, moving equipment into place and installing silt fencing and other erosion and sediment control devices. No lane closings are expected for the preconstruction work.

The project will require a new left lane on northbound College Avenue south of the Joyce Boulevard intersection. A traffic signal will be added at the Mall Avenue and Shiloh Drive end of the flyover.

As work progresses, there will be lane closings.

Brown said the inside lane of northbound College Avenue will be closed for several months while the entrance to the flyover and its supporting walls are built. As more concrete pillars are installed, the outside lane of westbound Fulbright will be closed for at least a month.

When workers begin setting steel girders on the bridge foundations in late 2013 or early 2014, southbound College Avenue and both lanes of traffic on the expressway will be closed periodically. Brown said those closings will happen overnight when traffic is light. The closings wont all happen at the same time, he said, and theyll likely occur over a period of several weeks.

Jordan said there will be temporary headaches associated with construction.

Its like anything else, he said. Theres going to be some disruption. But thats the short-term price of progress. The long-term price is the future of this city.

Money for the project will be split 80 percent from federal sources and 20 percent from the city. The federal share comes from an earmark the city received in the 2005 federal highway bill. The citys share will come from the citys transportation bond program, a voter-approved, $65.9 million sales tax pledge that has paid for a variety of street improvement throughout town.

The city issued two rounds of bonds, in 2006 and 2009, totaling $34.2 million. A third phase of bond money is set to be issued in 2014.

Design and engineering on the project are completed. The city and SourceGas agreed to split the $113,000 cost of moving a natural gas main line in the area.

The flyover is one of three projects associated with the federally funded Fayetteville Expressway Economic Development Corridor. The others are a traffic roundabout recently opened in front of Washington Regional Medical Center and a one-mile extension to Van Asche Drive thats being designed.

Dick Trammel, Arkansas Highway Commissioner, said the flyover should make for safer and more efficient travel in the area and will help businesses by improving access but the project is also part of a host of other highway improvements planned in the region.

People in Northwest Arkansas are going to see a lot of orange barrels but things are going to be a lot different in the next three to five years, Trammel said.