Utility work heads off GMD and into neighborhoods

Workers building the town's underground utilities system this month turned a major corner, literally and figuratively, in making overhead cables disappear.

Wilco Electrical LLC, with its work along Gulf of Mexico Drive largely complete in the southern quarter of the island, began expanding its work to bore and install conduit for electrical and fiber data cables into neighborhoods, working from south to north. Likewise, work on the northern quarter of the island is close to the same milestone, but construction has yet to advance into the neighborhoods off Gulf of Mexico Drive.

"The positive news where we stand now is we have completed the majority of the work within phase 1 and phase 2 along GMD,’’ said Mark Porter, a town consultant with CDM Smith on the project. "We've had a lot of positive feedback from the residents and understanding allowing us to get in there and get out efficiently.''

Porter and town project manager James Linkogle said the $49.1 million project to bury electrical and communications cables, an effort that began in July but has its origins with voter approvals in 2015, is ahead of schedule and on budget. The project, one of the state's largest of its kind, had been envisioned in five phases but recently was rescoped as four phases with an anticipated end in 2022.

In phase 2, which is taking place on the northern end of the island, all conduit and feeder lines along GMD have been built, along with work on Broadway Street, Firehouse Road, Longboat Drive South and the area around Poinsetta Avenue. Some equipment pads and wire still need to be installed, Porter said.

Work could start soon on phase 3, which extends from Country Club Shores to the county line. 

Additionally, work being done by Comcast and Frontier to remove overhead cables in neighborhoods in the southern phase is moving ahead.

"We want to try to have them as far out in front so when we’re ready to get the poles out and get our lines out, we’re not waiting for them,” Linkogle said. 

The town envisions underground work and take down of FPL poles and cables to wrap up in the third quarter of this year along Gulf of Mexico Drive and in the southern neighborhoods.

Phase Two, which extends from the northern tip of the island to Dream Island Road, is planned to be wrapped up by the end of 2020 along Gulf of Mexico Drive and by the middle of 2021 in the neighborhoods.

Phase Three, from Country Club Shores to the county line, is expected to wrap up by the end of 2021 along GMD and a few months earlier in the neighborhoods.

Phase Four, from Dream Island Road south to the county line, is expected to finish by the end of 2022.