Costs for interchanges on U.S. 19 keep rising

Earlier estimates for the work were rough and low, officials say, and the prices of land and damages to business are high and rising.

By LISA GREENE

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 28, 2001

Plans to fix two interchanges on U.S. 19 doubled in cost because buying land and paying damages to displaced businesses have gotten much more expensive, Tampa Bay's top transportation official said Friday.

"This is a tough corridor," said Ken Hartmann, state Department of Transportation District 7 secretary. "We know we have a lot of needs."

The original cost estimates to fix the interchanges were only preliminary, Hartmann said.

Two U.S. House representatives recently wrote to Florida Transportation Secretary Tom Barry, complaining that the state's plan for $50-million in federal highway money would not fix U.S. 19 fast enough.

Earlier, the department had estimated it could improve U.S. 19 interchanges at Enterprise Road in north Clearwater for $25-million and 118th Avenue in Pinellas Park for $40-million.

So, when U.S. Reps. C.W. Bill Young and Mike Bilirakis helped get the $50-million last fall, local officials hoped they could fix at least one interchange and make other improvements as well.

But in March, the department gave new estimates, saying Enterprise would cost $63.9-million and 118th Ave., 82.9-million.

The department planned to use $10-million of the $50-million to make U.S. 19 medians safer north of Sunset Point Road, but it said most of the money would go to a reserve fund to buy future rights of way, prompting Young and Bilirakis' complaint.

Pinellas County Commissioner Karen Seel, who chaired a local task force to make U.S. 19 safer, said the original estimates should have been more accurate.

"If everything has escalated and changed, we need to know those figures and lay out a plan and a timetable," she said. "We need to do something and do something now."

The original estimates didn't study land costs in detail, Hartmann said, and were only "pure planning-level estimates." Forecasting the cost of such a project "is as much an art as it is a science," he said, especially because it means predicting how the economy will affect land costs.

Under the new estimates, buying land would require big chunks of money -- $34-million for Enterprise Road and $27.9-million for 118th Avenue. Since the original estimates were made in 1998, Hartmann said, land costs on U.S. 19 have increased.

Plans call for U.S. 19 to be fixed without buying new land. But Hartmann said that the department still will have to buy land to build retention ponds at both interchanges. He couldn't say Friday exactly how much of the new estimates are due to higher land costs and how much stem from increased costs to pay damages to businesses in the area.

"Right of way costs are going up all over the state," Hartmann said. "It's not unique to this project."

But fixing U.S. 19 is hard because so many businesses border the road, making buying land even more expensive, Hartmann said. And Florida's laws for paying landowners whose property is taken to make way for roads are among the most generous in the nation.

Hartmann said he hopes to meet next week with local officials and staffers for Young and Bilirakis to discuss how best to spend the $50-million.

"I think we all have a common desire to make improvements to U.S. 19," Hartmann said. "We've got a lot of people working very hard . . . to make it a safer place for everyone."

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