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Road to somewhere

Once quiet, now critical, Lithia Pinecrest Road is changing. So is the character of the rural region around it.

By JAY CRIDLIN
Published January 28, 2005

LITHIA - When Eric Zimmermann opened Super Feed and Hay in Lithia 23 years ago, Lithia Pinecrest Road was a quiet, rural thoroughfare linking Brandon with southern Polk County.

"There was no traffic on the road," said Zimmermann, who delivers feed to customers in Riverview and Brandon. "You could drive right out on the road and not even have to stop at your driveway.

"Now there are times where it could take five minutes just to break into traffic," he says. "It's definitely a problem, compared to what it used to be."

Such is life along Lithia Pinecrest Road - one of east Hillsborough County's most vital commuter arteries, a critical phosphate shipping route, a burgeoning commercial corridor and a scenic reminder of Brandon's past.

But businesses and shopping centers along the road are taking the place of homes and farmland. The two-lane road needs to be widened to support additional traffic.

"It's not as scenic as it once was," said Hillsborough County sheriff David Gee, who lives in Lithia. "Now, as you start to drive south of Bloomingdale, you're seeing a lot of that landscape disappear - the rural atmosphere, the pastures, the rolling hills."

On Jan. 20, the county voted to remove the northern part of Lithia Pinecrest, from State Road 60 to Bloomingdale Avenue, from its Truck Route Plan. Trucks could also lose access to another section, from Bloomingdale to FishHawk Boulevard, in the next few years, as FishHawk/Boyette Road is widened.

The vote ensured that half of Lithia Pinecrest will be free of truck traffic for the foreseeable future. Yet many residents want more guarantees that the safety and seclusion they value will not die.

"It is a failed road today," said Valrico resident Claude "Frenchy" Fortin, who has argued on behalf of several neighborhood associations to get the road removed as a truck route, "and it's going to get worse."

The decision to limit truck access was only the latest step in a decades-long debate over what to do with Lithia Pinecrest Road.

When Lithia Pinecrest was built in the late 1960s as a phosphate shipping route between Polk County and the Port of Tampa, the area's population was a fraction of what it is today. Much the nearby land was undeveloped.

"It was a two-lane road to nowhere," said Ned Baier, transportation manager for the county's planning and growth management department.

By the 1970s, the road's Alafia River bridge became too weak to support heavy truck traffic. Officials instituted a 50,000-pound weight limit on Lithia Pinecrest between County Road 39 and State Road 60. Empty or smaller trucks could still take Lithia Pinecrest, but trucks loaded with phosphate had to take an alternate route.

When the bridge was repaired in the mid 1970s, residents persuaded the county to keep the weight limit - against the recommendation of the county engineer.

In 2001, as developers honed in on Valrico and Lithia, trucking companies complained that they were being unfairly ticketed for driving to construction sites.

County attorneys agreed: The road was sound, and there was no legal reason for the weight limit to remain. Yet once again, the Hillsborough County Commission, at the behest of angry residents, disagreed. The signs have been up ever since, leaving the Sheriff's Office to monitor, weigh and cite trucks that break the weight limit.

The debate has launched a war of words between some in Valrico and other south county communities such as Sun City Center, where State Road 674 has several crossings for seniors in golf carts.

"No community in the world wants trucks rumbling through," said Jim Duffy, who has led Sun City Center residents' research into the Truck Route Plan. "I think it's pretty arrogant to say, "Take the trucks off my community highway and put them somewhere else.' That goes for everybody, us included."

Valrico residents wanted all of Lithia Pinecrest removed from the plan - a move encouraged by some planning and growth management officials.

"We don't want Lithia Pinecrest as a truck route," Fortin said.

Part of why residents have been so opposed to heavy phosphate trucks on Lithia Pinecrest is unlike most of Brandon's gridlike north-south and east-west roads, the diagonal Lithia Pinecrest has maintained many hills, trees, parks and farmland on both sides.

But residents say time is limited for what remains of that pastoral feel.

"Commercialism is coming. It's inevitable," said retired schoolteacher Frank Crawford, who has lived on Lithia Pinecrest for 32 years. "Nobody wants to buy this as residential (property), but commercially, yeah, it's got potential."

Several years ago, in response to public outcry over the road's diminishing rural character, the county launched a three-year study on how best to weave new businesses into the fabric of established homes between SR 60 and Lumsden Road.

Last February, the Lithia Pinecrest Restricted-Business Professional Office Overlay - the first of its kind in the county - became part of Hillsborough's Land Development Code. Among other things, the overlay helps preserve older trees, allows residents to convert their homes to businesses, and limits new building heights and hours of operation.

"They're hoping it doesn't turn into what State Road 60 has turned into - a commercial strip with lots of signs," said senior county planner Dave Borisenko, who headed the overlay study. "They'd like to see it stay as attractive as possible."

While there are still many homes in the vicinity of Lithia Pinecrest, much of the land along the north end of the road is zoned for business or professional offices. Many homes are now offices and churches.

The result: Lithia Pinecrest may look residential. But increasingly, it no longer is.

"That's a good thing, and it's not a good thing," said Dawn Serina, owner of Tropical Realty Acres near Lithia Pinecrest and Bell Shoals Road. "It definitely is a nice look, more than the big office buildings. But I feel bad for those people. They're kind of stuck in the middle."

At first blush, the lure of an attractive business location might seem to increase home values along Lithia Pinecrest. Serina, for one, said her business has boomed since she relocated there four years ago.

But some of her clients have had trouble selling homes still zoned for residential use. Their best solution is to rezone and relocate. For sale signs dot properties along Lithia Pinecrest.

"I think it's just a matter of time before the entire Lithia Pinecrest between Lumsden and Bloomingdale is commercial," Serina said. "It's creeping up both sides."

As the Lithia Pinecrest corridor grows, traffic will become an even greater concern.

The road currently carries tens of thousands of cars each day, and crosses four of east Hillsborough's biggest east-west corridors: State Road 60, Lumsden Road, Bloomingdale Avenue and FishHawk Boulevard. Combined, those four roads carry more than 142,000 cars near Lithia Pinecrest each day - a little less than the population of Tallahassee.

Traffic on sections of Lithia Pinecrest grew by up to 72 percent between 1994 and 2002; as recently as 2001 it was operating at 112 percent of capacity. When traffic is heavy, or when part of the road washes out, as happened after Hurricane Jeanne, traffic on Lithia Pinecrest can come to a standstill.

Even so, there are no immediate plans, or funds, to widen Lithia Pinecrest to four lanes. County Commissioner Ronda Storms, who voted against keeping any of the road as a truck route, said the county should have required builders to fund such a project when FishHawk and other nearby housing developments were approved.

"They got away with not widening Boyette and not widening Lithia Pinecrest, and so now today, we pay," she said. "Everybody pays in lost time - going to the grocery store, taking their kids to Little League and school, getting to work. It's a huge headache."

Widening the road from SR 60 to Bloomingdale, fewer than 4 miles of roadway, would cost at least $30.5-million, according to the county's long-range transportation plan. By comparison, the county is now spending $26-million to widen a similar length of Boyette Road to four and even six lanes.

Baier said the county increasingly will look to developers to provide land for right of way along Lithia Pinecrest or pay for transportation improvements, such as turn lanes.

But even widening Lithia Pinecrest wouldn't solve all the road's woes. Four lanes might ease congestion, but would further erode the road's character.

"If they widened the road, for business purposes, it would increase the (property) value," Serina said. "For residential purposes, it's going to be a terrible detriment. It's very hard for us to sell residential homes in such a busy area."

For longtime residents, it's one more cause for concern.

"A four-lane highway certainly would affect my lifestyle," said Crawford, the homeowner. "If somebody gets excited about it, they'll find the funds."

Nonetheless, Storms said that the recent furor over the overlay and Truck Route Plan could signify that residents are ready to push for county funds. "People are more motivated now," she said.

The Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce is on board. Jeff Campbell, chairman of the Government Advisory Council, has met with state legislators to discuss what the chamber can do about widening Lithia Pinecrest. His group will discuss the issue with Storms in February.

"Anything that deals with transportation is not going to be a short-term fix," Campbell said. "We can't expect to get something done in three months."

Still, Valrico resident Fortin hopes something is done sooner rather than later - especially as more and more businesses sprout up along Lithia Pinecrest.

"This county's one of the fastest-growing counties in the country," he said. "I don't think we have a problem with economic development. What you have a challenge with is planning and managing the growth."

Jay Cridlin can be reached at 661-2442 or cridlin@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 27, 2005, 09:33:08]