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Developer Agrees To Widen Boulevard

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 12, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - The widening of Bruce B. Downs Boulevard should start Dec. 1, according to a deal between Pasco County and the developer of Seven Oaks.

More than seven years after Seven Oaks was supposed to start widening Wesley Chapel's main north-south highway, the Chicago-based developer agreed Thursday to spend $22.7 million to widen the highway to six lanes between the Hillsborough County line and State Road 54.
Pasco County commissioners still must sign off on the deal.

The price of the project declined from last year's estimate of $34 million thanks largely to the declining price of construction labor, said Craig Weber, who manages the development of Seven Oaks for Chicago-based Crown Communities.
County Administrator John Gallagher and the Development Review Committee gave Crown Communities 22 months - until October 2010 - to finish the widening. The county will pick up the tab for much of the work through impact-fee reimbursements and credits.

The schedule for the project depends on how quickly the Department of Transportation approves permits for the project, Weber said. "We're hoping to start Dec. 1. It all depends on the DOT," he said.

Thursday's agreement came about a year after Seven Oaks expected to begin work on Bruce B. Downs. That work got delayed by permitting problems and conflicts with planning for the eastern extension of State Road 56, Weber said.
DOT officials delayed Seven Oaks so they could sort out which road crew would be tying up the S.R. 56-Bruce B. Downs intersection at which time. Tens of thousands of cars pass through that intersection every day, according to DOT traffic counts.

Weber said work on the highway will start at S.R. 54 and move south.

It will skip the junction with S.R. 56 and move north from County Line Road. The project's final stage will be the lanes needed to tie in to S.R. 56 at the future 10-lane intersection, Weber said.

The widening of Bruce B. Downs is the second of four major road projects scheduled for Wesley Chapel in the next 21/2 years. While work is under way on Bruce B. Downs and S.R. 56, the county and DOT will begin widening S.R. 54 to six lanes between Interstate 75 and Curley Road. The work is slated to start in late 2009 and take two years.

The final major project slated for Wesley Chapel is the DOT-run replacement of the I-75 overpasses above County Road 54 just west of the junction with Bruce B. Downs.

The DOT will open bids on that project this month, with construction scheduled to start in early 2009, said Kris Carson, spokeswoman for the DOT's Tampa office.

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

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