No more than 300 residential units would be demolished to widen Interstate 15 and allow other road improvements just south of downtown Las Vegas, far fewer than the 900 homes and apartments first thought to be at risk.

"It's just refinement. You throw something down; you look at ways to make it better," Dan McMartin, project manager of the road work plan known as Project Neon, said at a public meeting Wednesday.

The smaller number of homes and businesses -- about 100 commercial lots also would be razed -- came after Nevada Department of Transportation engineers narrowed the options to three plans that are fundamentally alike.

"Another part of the review we did was a housing survey. We got a lot more accurate information," McMartin said. "We found out there are vacant units, houses nobody lives in" that reduced the number of affected occupied units.

Construction could cost up to $700 million, with right-of-way costs adding up to $300 million more to the price tag.

The work probably will be done in phases, starting in late 2008. What work would go first and how long each phase would take has not yet been established.

The project also lacks full funding, with only about $120 million secured to date. But the project has a high priority with state officials, who are seeking work dollars.

A task force appointed by Gov. Kenny Guinn earlier this year is looking at how to fully fund Project Neon and other high-profile road work projects throughout Nevada.

Project Neon includes widening I-15 between the Spaghetti Bowl, or the interchange with U.S. Highway 95, and Sahara Avenue to as many as 16 lanes. That section of I-15 is now eight to 10 lanes.

The highway's configuration would include "express" lanes carrying traffic through downtown; "local" lanes carrying entrance and exit ramp traffic only; and car pool lanes.

That stretch of I-15 is the Las Vegas Valley's busiest road section, carrying nearly 300,000 cars and trucks daily. That traffic volume is expected to nearly double by 2030.

Also, I-15 interchanges at Sahara and Charleston Boulevard would be rehabilitated or rebuilt.

A Martin Luther King Boulevard-to-Industrial Road connector road would be erected over I-15, south of Charleston.

And a flyover ramp linking Oakey Boulevard and Wyoming Avenue over Union Pacific Railroad tracks would be constructed. As part of that plan, Western Avenue would also be realigned.

The plan would cut into the neighborhood around I-15, much of which is a mix of small shops, strip malls and low-income housing.

Hardest-hit areas would be apartments between MLK, Desert Lane, Charleston and Alta Drive; and businesses between I-15, the Union Pacific tracks, Wyoming and Charleston.

"That's what this (public hearing) process is about, to make the decision whether this is acceptable. Does the project benefit the community, to outweigh the impacts of this project?" McMartin said.

"We're going to do our darndest to mitigate those impacts to the business owners, homeowners and renters," McMartin said.

Planners hope to have a preferred alternative put to public review by late 2006, with a decision on how to proceed being made by early 2007.

Affected property owners could be hearing from the state about buying their property as soon as sometime in 2007.

Among those owners probably will be Stella Butterfield, 80, who has lived in her Loch Lomond Way home along I-15, between Sahara and Oakey Boulevard, for about 40 years.

"My property is No. 1 on their list," Butterfield said.

But she accepts the likelihood of losing her longtime home.

"A house is a house. It's OK," she said. "I lived there before there was a freeway. I'd get stuck in gridlocked traffic on I-15. I don't take it anymore. There's no way out."

"I think it's a good thing, particularly with the way the city is growing," Butterfield said. "Even if it means I lose my house."