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40th St. Project To Continue

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By RICH SHOPES

rshopes@tampatrib.com

Published: January 18, 2009

TAMPA - Years of broken promises and neglect surrounding one of East Tampa's main roadways finally may be in the rearview mirror for frustrated residents.

The latest phase of an eight-year, $100 million widening of 40th Street from Fowler to Hillsborough avenues is slated to start Monday, part of a project officials hope will fuel community redevelopment.

"To me, 40th Street is a symbol of a forgotten part of our city that, although a major business artery, has been neglected for five decades," Mayor Pam Iorio said at a kickoff ceremony for the $6.1 million widening from Hanlon to Humphrey streets. "But we are reversing that trend."

Considered long overdue by many in East Tampa, the project came about after residents staged a protest and pleaded for repairs to the narrow highway and a dilapidated, flood-prone bridge over the Hillsborough River. Residents complained for years that politicians either turned a deaf ear to their pleas or failed to live up to promises.

"I was in high school when that bridge was built and I'm 69 now," community activist Fred Hoffman told the crowd at last week's ceremony.

Terry Neal, president of the Temple Crest Civic Association, said politicians made "promises after promises and nothing got done" until 2003, when Iorio made the widening a priority of her administration.

"We had promises going all the way back to former Mayor Nick Nuccio, 50 years ago," Neal said. "We have them in the association's minutes."

Iorio said she was convinced 40th Street needed attention when she walked across the bridge and noticed holes in the surface.

"You could see right through to the water," she said.

In addition to being widened from two lanes to four, 40th Street will get a landscaped center median, sidewalks, bicycle paths and three roundabouts - at River Hills Drive, Yukon Street and Hanlon Street - to slow traffic through the mixed residential-commercial district.

"They will help to calm the traffic through there," said Jean Dorzback, the city's transportation director.

The 40th Street project started in 2003 between Fowler and Busch Boulevard; the next phase was between Hanna and Hanlon streets.

Businesses fled 40th Street starting in the 1980s after years of neglect and officials want to spur economic development.

When completed in 2011, motorists will have a four-lane, north-south corridor from State Road 60, where 39th and 40th streets merge, to Fowler and the University of South Florida. The project is funded by the city, county, state and Busch Gardens.

The last phase, from Hanna to Hillsborough Avenue, hasn't been scheduled but is expected to start in early 2010.

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633.

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