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Target Elusive For Gunn Highway Work

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By B.C. MANION | The Tampa Tribune,

Published: August 6, 2008

CITRUS PARK - A steady beep-beep-beep fills the air as men in fluorescent lime and orange construction vests maneuver front-end loaders, compactors and graders in a massive project to resolve a traffic bottleneck on a stretch of Gunn Highway.

The $11.6 million project is about a mile long, beginning just south of Hixon Road (at Sheldon Road) and extending up Gunn to just north of South Mobley Road.

The work will improve traffic in an area that has been a chokepoint for years, said Steve Valdez, a spokesman for Hillsborough County's public works department.

Work began last summer and the county had expected the project to be done by this fall, but officials now think the work will be done by spring.

The project's completion can't happen soon enough for employees of several businesses along that segment of Gunn.

The work has meant a loss of business, lots of traffic jams, coats of dirt on cars, drainage problems and loss of electrical and phone service at times, several business owners said.

Trula Clarke, supervisor of nurses at Dr. Robert Norman Dermatology, 8002 Gunn Highway, said it's a pain to get out of the parking lot, but added, "I think it's going to be a blessing when it's all done."

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