The construction, crucial to downtown Oldsmar's redevelopment, will last into 2005, rather than wrapping up in November.
By JANETTE NEUWAHL and CATHERINE E. SHOICHET
Published August 27, 2004
OLDSMAR - A contractor's problems on a downtown drainage project are causing weeks of additional inconvenience for Oldsmar residents and businesses, city officials say.
The $1-million stormwater drainage improvement project has churned up roads around St. Petersburg Drive and State Street. It also has been plagued by a variety of problems.
Crews working on sidewalks have left messes behind at times, officials say. Residents have complained about sediment in the road. And rain not only delayed the work but left puddles of standing water.
"It's just been one fiasco after another," said Mayor Jerry Beverland."The reason we don't fire (the construction company) is that it would take so much longer to hire someone else that it wouldn't be done until the end of next year."
Bun Construction Co. of Tampa has had trouble directing traffic around the work and training its employees, meaning the project will take about four to six weeks longer than expected, Oldsmar public works director John Mulvihill said.
Bun's owner did not return calls regarding the project Tuesday.
Bun was the lowest of five bidders on the project, according to city records. The work is partly being paid for with a grant from the Pinellas Anclote Basin Board and the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The city gave Bun approval to begin the job in April. The work was originally planned to take 210 days. But instead of being done Nov. 7, the work is expected to be done by early 2005, Mulvihill said.
Several Oldsmar residents say they're willing to put up with the inconvenience as long as it leads to better drainage.
"It seems to be taking quite a while, but the truth of the matter is, it's been a long time coming," said Mickey Freymuller, who owns Mickey's Peanuts at the corner of St. Petersburg Drive and State Street.
Construction crews "come and go," Freymuller said. "One day they're all here, and the next day they're all gone. They did half of my front. I guess they're not doing the other half. They seemed confused."
From her home on Dartmouth Avenue E, Jan Bennett watched crews scatter dirt across St. Petersburg Drive early on in the project. That narrowed traffic to one lane, she said, and made driving difficult.
"It was pretty nasty," Bennett said.
The project includes installing pipes and box culverts throughout Oldsmar's community redevelopment area to drain water that flows south from Tampa Road.
"We want to take all of that stormwater into the central system, treat it and then get it out to the bay," Mulvihill said.
The stormwater drainage project was formulated as part of the city's long-term effort to foster development in downtown Oldsmar. Without the extra drainage capacity the project is creating, Oldsmar could not court developments like the new Hilton Gardens hotel. The city just couldn't drain the water, Mulvihill said.
"It wasn't flooding at this point, but we were going to have problems . . . there's not sufficient capacity in the system to handle that amount of water," he said. "We sized the project to handle all the runoff from all of the new development that will occur in the community redevelopment area."
So far, most of the construction along St. Petersburg Drive and on Arlington Avenue is complete. A bus stop shelter is also nearly done on north St. Petersburg Drive. Construction on State Street and Washington Avenue is left to finish.
The city is paying the company in installments and has had city staff work on assisting the contractor. Mulvihill remains optimistic about the undertaking.
"It's not a difficult project, and he's not all that bad," he said. "We can get it done, but contractors in general are an interesting thing to deal with."
- Staff writer Richard Danielson contributed to this report.
