The Gila River Indian Community is going to study extending 40th Street south of Ahwatukee Foothills onto the reservation to provide a direct route to its resort, golf courses and the future Rawhide Western Town & Steakhouse.

Gary Bohnee, community spokesman, said Wednesday the community has set aside money to begin studying possible street routes to connect 40th Street and Pecos Road in Ahwatukee Foothills with 48th Street and Wild Horse Pass Boulevard on the reservation, a distance of about a mile and a half.

A connecting street not only would give Ahwatukee Foothills residents a quicker way to get to Rawhide and the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa but give Gila River residents a way to drive up to a proposed power center that developers want to build just south of Pecos Road at 40th Street. Bohnee did not know when the study would begin or how long it would take.

But Larry Stephenson the Gila River's acting planning director, told the Chandler Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday that before the center and another one being considered near Maricopa are developed, the community needs to figure out how to extend its utilities to them.

"We have to figure out how to get water, sewer and telecommunications," he said.

He said the proposed power center, which could include a big box store like a SuperTarget or Wal-Mart Supercenter, would provide badly needed sales tax revenues to the community.

Stephenson said transportation is a major concern for the Gila River community, especially because of all the truck traffic along the Beltline Road, which runs through the reservation, connecting Riggs Road in the southeast Valley to 51st Avenue in west Phoenix. It is a street with three names.

"It functions as a de facto thoroughfare," he said. "We are concerned about that and have not figured out the ideal solution."

But that doesn't mean the residents want the proposed South Mountain Freeway as an alternate, he said. He also said that many Ahwatukee Foothills residents probably just see "vacant barren land" when they look to the south and wonder why the proposed South Mountain Freeway can't be built there.

The Gila River residents don't want the noise and dust any more than Ahwatukee Foothills residents, Stephenson said.

"I remind people that the adopted alignment (for the South Mountain) still is Pecos Road," he said.

Stephenson has worked for the community since 1992, helping guide its economic plans before and after the community opened three successful casinos. The money from the casinos has mainly been used to catch up, for things like improved electric service, telecommunications and sewage systems.