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YMCA, School Board Team Up On Road

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By RONNIE BLAIR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 8, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - The YMCA of the Suncoast has given $600,000 to the Pasco County School District to help pay for an extension of Photonics Drive at J.W. Mitchell High School.

The school district built the 1,900-foot road extension to give motorists - mostly students - an extra means of entering and exiting the crowded campus.

The idea was to reduce some of the congestion on Little Road at the beginning and end of the school day. Previously, traffic coming to and from Mitchell had to use Little Road.

With the extension of Photonics Drive, some of the school traffic can now enter and exit from Mitchell Boulevard, which is south of the school.

'It makes it safer for the kids to exit the school and for all those students not to have to pour out onto Little Road,' said John Petrashek, the school district's director of new construction.

Mitchell High has nearly 2,600 students.

The high school won't be alone in making use of the road extension.

The YMCA, west of the school, also benefited. The Photonics Drive extension gives the YMCA direct access to Little Road, which is east of the school.

The total cost to build the road extension was $1.3 million, so the $600,000 from the YMCA was a welcome contribution, Petrashek said.

'It helped greatly,' he said. 'They benefit. We benefit.'

The school district received the check from the YMCA on Sept. 5. The Pasco County School Board approved an agreement last week between the school district and the YMCA to formalize the payment arrangement.

Work on Photonics Drive was finished during the summer.

Petrashek said the road was supposed to have been included in the original design for Mitchell High, but the road was dropped from the final construction plan. Mitchell High opened in 2000.

The district still wanted to complete the road, though, and went through the full permitting process with the county 'just like a developer' to make it clear the road meets all of the county's specifications, Petrashek said.

There was a reason the school district wanted to do that.

The district plans to deed the road extension over to the county so it will become a public road open to anyone.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218 or rblair@tampatrib.com.

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