Residents and merchants along the route weather dirt and detours as they await the magic completion date of April 2005.
By NORA KOCH
Published May 2, 2004
TARPON SPRINGS - Kenneth Anderson remembers when Klosterman Road was just two lanes of dirt weaving through North Pinellas, then a no-man's land with nary a traffic light between Clearwater and New Port Richey.
Today the 65-year-old maintenance man looks outside the home where he has lived since 1961 at a landscape of reflective orange barrels and detour routes, knowing that those days are long gone.
The dirt he recalls is there again. But now it's a sign of progress, with Pinellas County in the midst of transforming much of Klosterman Road into a four-lane divided highway.
While workers will toil on the massive project for nearly two years, Anderson and others who live and work on the north side of the road between U.S. 19 and Alt. U.S. 19 are smack in the middle of detours and dust.
"It's driving us crazy!" said Anderson, who drives through the project at least five times a day to and from his Park Avenue home.
But, Anderson concedes, his inconvenience might be worth the improved road safety and traffic flow the project promises. "It will be nice when it's done."
In July, the county began the $10-million road-widening project, which also includes drainage improvements. When it is completed in April 2005, the road will be a four-lane divided highway with sidewalks on both sides stretching from U.S. 19 to Alt. 19, according to Robert Guercia, senior engineer with the county's construction division.
The finished road will also be safer, Guercia said, because the project includes leveling Klosterman Road, one of the few roads in Pinellas with rolling hills, to help drivers and pedestrians see better.
Two-way traffic will be maintained on the road through the project's completion, Guercia said. On the north side of the road, sections of land have been flattened in preparation for the additional road, but for the most part workers have managed to keep open most intersecting road entrances.
Meanwhile, Anderson braves the work by shutting his windows to keep out the dust. That forced him to turn on his air conditioning early this year. A gray film perpetually covers his cars.
"The other night I started raking my yard, and I could feel the grit on my teeth," he said.
Some local businesses are also feeling the grit, but through a dent in profits. Eddie's Upholstery, a family-owned business that relocated to Klosterman Road three years ago, has seen business slow since construction began, said matriarch Rosa Aguilar.
"When they finish it will be wonderful," said Aguilar, who started the business 15 years ago with her husband, Eddie. "But by the time they finish, who knows how business will be?"
With new customers getting lost and discouraged while trying to find the store amid construction, the Aguilars have resorted to making house calls with their books of fabric to take orders.
When business took a downturn in the fall, Aguilar's son, Julio, who bought out his parents last year, remortgaged his home to open a second store near Brandon. He's hoping the new location will be more profitable.
"That construction did a job on us," said Julio, who is expecting a child in July. "I understand they've got to do the road, but that doesn't help me any."
Construction hasn't been kind to Palm Springs Florist, in a shopping center on the northwest corner of Alt. 19 and Klosterman, either. Although most of the store's business comes in over the phone, walk-in traffic has been down since construction began and clouded the entrances, said co-owner Robert H. Shaw.
But the roadwork did give the florist a one-day boost, said floral designer Jean Murrell: "We noticed on Valentine's Day that a few of the (construction) fellows came in for roses."
