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Congestion May Hinder Plans For New Lowe's

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 29, 2007

LAND O' LAKES - Chronic traffic congestion at one of Pasco County's busiest crossroads could derail plans for a new Lowe's store nearby.

Lowe's officials this week asked the county for an exemption to new state rules that force developers to pay for traffic improvements to offset the impact of their projects.

Those rules, which took effect earlier this year, would require the home improvement retailer to spend $160 million on an overpass and interchange to lift U.S. 41 over State Road 54. The 166,000-square-foot warehouse store would sit just east of the intersection.

The state Department of Transportation already has sketched its own plans for such an overpass, but funding and construction remain a decade or more away.
DOT officials say the overpass will be needed as growth in central Pasco and nearby sections of Hillsborough County channel more and more traffic through that intersection. During afternoon rush hour - from 4 to 6 on weekdays - nearly 5,000 cars an hour pass through the U.S. 41-S.R. 54 junction, according to a traffic study Lowe's submitted to the county in 2006.

Company officials expect to add no more than 5 percent to the traffic load if the store opens as planned next year.

Lowe's submitted its plans in 2005 for a store on 42 acres just east of the Pasco sheriff's office's Land O' Lakes substation. It submitted its traffic study for that site in late 2006 - just weeks before the new state rules took effect.

Because the U.S. 41-S.R. 54 junction is so overloaded, virtually any new development triggers the need for the overpass according to the new rules, Lowe's attorney Ben Harrill told Pasco's Development Review Committee on Thursday.

Neither the county nor the state has the overpass on its short-term road plan. That means developers can't recoup road costs in the form of impact fee credits. As a result, Lowe's or any other developer would have to bear the full cost of the $160 million fix, which would render the Lowe's land unable to develop, Harrill said.

His assessment was echoed by county staff members, who recommended that the Development Review Comimittee let Lowe's use the 2006 traffic study to guide improvements at the intersection.

That study would require Lowe's to spend $1.5 million to add a new eastbound lane to S.R. 54 and double the length of turn lanes for westbound motorists on S.R. 54 planning to go south onto U.S. 41.

Such improvements would shave 20 percent to 25 percent off the nearly three minutes drivers spend waiting in traffic at rush hour, Harrill argued.

Committee members, led by County Administrator John Gallagher, deferred a decision until the county can talk with DOT more about its plans for the intersection. The committee will take up the issue again Oct. 11 in Dade City.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201 or kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com.

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