NASHUA — The city will attempt to sell several properties that it previously acquired for the future Broad Street Parkway, as they are no longer needed to pave way for the road.

The parkway design has been scaled back from its original four-lane plan to just two-lanes, allowing for at least four parcels that were previously bought by the city to be sold.

On Wednesday, the city's Finance Committee approved a contract award for parkway appraisal services totaling $135,000 to begin the process of eventually placing the properties on the market.

Those properties include 40 and 42 Prescott St., 78 Amherst St. and 36 Broad St. The parcels, which were originally needed for the alignment of the Broad Street Parkway, are no longer necessary since the design has been modified, explained Mayor Donnalee Lozeau.

She said that because the parcels were obtained using federal funds, the revenue from the sale of the parcels must be returned to the New Hampshire Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration for credit to the Broad Street Parkway account.

“The money from the sales will go right back into the project,” Lozeau explained on Thursday.

Currently, New Hampshire DOT is managing the right-of-way process for the parkway, however the city has agreed to support its effort by undertaking procurement of appraisal services.

The work will be done in conjunction with DOT's own ongoing appraisal efforts, according to paperwork on file at City Hall. This week, the Finance Committee approved three separate contracts with three different appraisal agencies for the work — Capital Appraisal of Concord, Fremeau Appraisal of Manchester and McManus & Nault Appraisal of Bow.

It is anticipated that each of the three contracts will not exceed $45,000 each, or a total of $135,000, according to city officials.

While the appraisal process is about to begin, the layout and alignment of the future Broad Street Parkway has been completed, with engineers now working on the proposed drainage system for the road.

The horizontal and vertical layout of the 1.8 mile, two-lane urban roadway has already been designed by Hayner Swanson, Inc. of Nashua. Now that the first phase of the design concept is behind them, engineers are beginning to focus on the remaining 70 percent of the roadway design, which includes the stormwater drainage plan and determining the road's impact on specific wetlands and residential properties.

Fay, Spofford and Thorndike of Burlington, Mass., is assisting Hayner Swanson, Inc. in creating the engineering design for the Broad Street Parkway from the Broad Street/Blue Hill Avenue intersection to Pine Street/Central Street.

The ultimate goal of the project is to connect Broad Street to the downtown area by allowing motorists to bypass Amherst Street via a second crossing of the Nashua River, possibly attracting more business and people to the Millyard Technology Park.

The bridge project was accepted by the Board of Aldermen in 2008, and $37 million in funding was approved by voters the following year for construction work. About $68 million in federal funds are paying for the remainder of the project.

Construction is expected to begin in the spring or early summer of 2013, with the roadway completed by December of 2014.

“I hope we make it,” Lozeau told city officials on Wednesday.

Demolition of the Boiler House building in Nashua's Millyard was the first sign that the Broad Street Parkway is moving forward. Other minor construction work is now being done on Pine and Palm Streets to help prepare for the layout of the road.

- - - - - - - -