SPANISH FORT, Ala.—City support for a proposed Interstate 10 service road remains strong as Baldwin County commissioners resume discussions of the multi-million dollar project.

“After we visited this subject in 2007, and after we’d been through all of the public hearings, the consensus here was that the frontage road fits in with our long-range plans for the city. We still support it,” Bonner said Monday, less than one week after the revamped county commission resurrected discussions of the project.

At issue is the potential construction of an $8 million service road that would bypass the interstate, connecting Bass Pro Shops Drive in the Spanish Fort Town Center to Woodrow Lane near the Eastern Shore Centre.

“We felt like then — and still believe — that the connectivity this would create for Spanish Fort is a positive,” Bonner said, noting the north Interstate 10 service road would not only help the city’s strongest retail areas “blend” better with other Eastern Shore developments but it would also provide the city with “ramp space” and increased visibility Daphne enjoys with the County Road 13 interchange.

Bonner also said it is his understanding that the county is not moving forward with the project but rather entering a due diligence phase in which they compile a “budgeted figure for what it would cost to proceed.”

The Daphne City Council rescinded its support — and $1 million financial commitment — for the three-year-old project in April after TimberCreek residents voiced heated opposition.

Opponents of the plan argued the negative environmental ramifications of the project threaten the integrity of the TimberCreek development and the already precarious D’Olive Watershed.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say the people of Daphne are unhappy with this project being on the table again. I think the people in TimberCreek are certainly not happy about it,” Bonner said.