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Neighborhood report

Crosstown project on track

While work on the expressway moves ahead, a proposal for a parking lot underneath it downtown is postponed.

By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published September 30, 2005

Officials gave a measured thumbs-up this week to progress on the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway, where a 6-mile reversible lane is under construction.

Piece by piece, the work is being completed with an August 2006 deadline still in sight, officials said.

Crews are close to finishing a bridge across Delaney Creek, construction manager Harmon Bennett told the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority.

At the Palm River, workers are half finished building an access road, or trestle, over the river so a crane can work on foundation repair.

Traffic on the expressway is running higher this year than last year, records show, and toll revenues are on pace to exceed $30-million, the take last year.

The board postponed until next month a new proposal to open a downtown parking lot underneath the expressway near Whiting Street.

The lot, on property acquired from CSX Railroad, would serve downtown office workers and people going to events at the St. Pete Times Forum.

Under terms of the deal, the Expressway Authority would retain 60 percent of the revenue and a parking management company would keep 40 percent.

The board also approved using as much as $775,000 for a feasibility study to forecast future uses for the expressway.

And it reached a settlement with Hubbard Construction Co., which handled road widening on the expressway between Interstate 75 and 78th Street. The $600,000 settlement resolved a dispute about the extent of work the company had agreed to perform.

- Andrew Meacham can be reached at 661-2431 or ameacham@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 29, 2005, 09:20:08]