‘Eyesore on our front porch’ set to disappear in Lexington

A trash disposal facility that Lexington Mayor Steve MacDougall says is “an eyesore on our front porch” will be gone soon.

The facility next to a landscaped town welcome sign where I-20, U.S. 378 and Corley Mill Road meet will move in coming months.

Its new home will be a 6.9-acre site on Dooley Road near where I-20 and U.S 1 meet, a parcel that Lexington County Council bought for $525,000 last week.

The purchase is a dual win for the town and county.

Town officials pushed for the facility to move while county officials wanted a location that’s larger in a less congested area.

The shift moves the facility out of the potential path for a new road that town officials plan to build to ease the bottleneck at the current intersection.

“The wheels are moving so it won’t be a hindrance,” MacDougall said.

Traffic coming to and from the facility increases congestion at one of the busiest intersections in the Columbia area, officials said.

“It adds to a traffic nightmare,” County Councilman Darrell Hudson of Lexington said.

County official aren’t certain how soon the new site will open for residents who prefer to drop off trash and recycling free instead of paying for home pickup.

Hudson expects confusion initially when the new site opens.

“Any time you do something new, you have issues,” he said. “But people will figure it out quickly.”

This story was originally published May 30, 2017 at 10:26 AM.