Governor Rick Scott may be the last, best hope for city and county officials who want to see the County Road 466A project finished before 2018.
Scott, running neck-to-neck in the polls against former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, might be inclined to make friends in Lake County—already heavily Republican—by massaging funds from his budget surplus to fund the highway’s missing link.
It’s important: the three-mile stretch will provide a gateway to Lake County for more than 4,000 new city residents arriving next year in The Villages of Fruitland Park.
Without the missing link, the four-laned western portion of the road that is set to start construction before the end of this year will narrow to two lanes for about 1.5 miles to Fruitland Park, where it will expand to four lanes again for the last half-mile to U.S. 27.
Worse than the potential bottleneck, Fruitland Park businesses fear years of road construction could sour new Villages residents.
Niki Pewsey, owner of Fruitland Park Café on U.S. 27, said she plans to write Gov. Scott to ask for his help funding the roadway improvements.
“About half of our regular customers are Villages people they’s had to put up with Highway 27 construction for two years,” Pewsey said. “New residents aren’t nearly as likely to brave the construction barricades to come find us and that’s a tremendous loss,” Pewsey said.
Pewsey said the tiny café has lost an average of $400 per day in sales since construction on U.S. 27 began.
“I’d hate to see that happen to businesses like Mystic Ice Cream, they are our favorite nighttime destination,” Pewsey said.
Some Fruitland Park officials are saying calls and letters to Scott could be the “Hail Mary” pass Lake County needs to win funding to complete the project.
“This is important for Lake County and especially important for Fruitland Park,” said Mayor Chris Bell.
The highway’s missing link will cost an estimated $8 million. While design work has been completed, no funds have been allocated for construction or right-of-way acquisition of 36 properties that front on that portion of the road.
“That’s the dilemma,” Lake County Public Works Director Jim Stivender, Jr. said.
Stivender told city officials recently that construction should start later this year on the 1.5-mile western phase of the road from the Sumter County line east toward the city.
That portion of the highway includes all the Villages of Fruitland Park frontage as well as major improvements to the dangerous intersection at Micro Racetrack Road. Stivender said construction of the western portion should be completed before the end of 2015.
“We are acquiring right-of-way now,” Stivender told commissioners.
The easternmost portion, a half-mile stretch that starts at U.S. 27, has also been funded, Stivender said. Right-of-way acquisition is under way and construction should start next January.
“To date we have spent more than $5 million on project design, planning, development and environmental and right-of-way work and we have another $3 million remaining,” Stivender said.
But without the missing link to connect the two phases, all that construction could have limited benefits.
“I don’t know of anyone who isn’t working on some angle to get federal grants or state grants to complete the middle portion,” Stivender said.
The problem is the revenue shortfall the county experienced with the real estate slowdown. While economic conditions are improving, the impact fee revenue stream is recovering slowly.
“Lake County has collected about $200,000 in road impact fees since January,” Stivender said. “Only about $20,000 of that has been collected in north Lake County. That doesn’t give us a lot of cash flow to do anything additional at this time,” he said.
Stivender said residents should also support tax initiatives, including local option gas and sales taxes, both of which will be up for renewal next year.
But the last best hope may yet rest with Gov. Scott.
