Country Club Shores turn lane construction to start in February

The town will soon embark on a mile-long construction project along Gulf of Mexico Drive near the Country Club Shores neighborhoods with peak season closing in. 

The original plan was to avoid construction during peak season, said Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman. However, Brownman assured residents that the contractor had developed a traffic plan to maintain two lanes of traffic throughout construction. 

Brownman said the project team is targeting a February start date, with a specific date still to be determined. A few signatures and finalizing contracts are still needed before construction can start, according to Brownman. 

Assuming the construction starts in February, Brownman said the contractor should be done with roadway construction in May and close out the project in June after landscaping and finishing touches are completed. 

The main contractor, Superior Asphalt Inc., will manage the traffic while utilizing a traffic plan approved by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). 

Maintaining two lanes of traffic was important to the town and project team, especially when starting in-season. 

“The traffic plan actually maintains traffic in each direction through the duration of the project," Brownman said. “It will just be that motorists will need to use due care traveling through the construction zone ... but the traffic plan maintains two full directions of traffic during the duration.”

Brownman also said Country Club Shores residents turning into the neighborhoods should have no problem doing so. 

“The contractor is tasked with not precluding access to anybody within the project limits,” Brownman said.

Details of delays 

Construction for this project was delayed due to various reasons, one of which was funding. 

The FDOT originally agreed to a reimbursement of $1.4 million, but construction bids came in around $2.6 million. 

The town then negotiated with FDOT and the department agreed to fully fund the project along GMD, which is a state-owned road. 

Getting that funding agreement in place prior to construction was a major step. 

“Without that (agreement), we wouldn’t have been able to start construction, and that took a little longer,” Brownman said. “Then, of course, we had the three storms, and that really backed things up.”

Further back, a redesign of the project caused the first delays. 

In 2017, the original design for the project cost the town around $200,000. At that time, the idea was to create a mile-long center turn lane for motorists to sit in and then turn into the neighborhoods. 

This idea was turned down by FDOT, mainly due to operational and procedural concerns. 

“It becomes a safety issue,” Brownman said. “They don’t generally approve those anymore without breaking it up in some fashion.”

That’s what led to the new concept — 12 individual turn lanes, five of which have raised curved medians. 

Brownman said, recently, there have been concerns about the medians. 

“The concern some people are having is the ability to make a left and kind of stage in the middle and wait for a gap,” Brownman said.

With the current design, there is likely only room for one car to stage and wait for the ability to turn, according to Brownman. 

He said before getting too far into construction, the project team would evaluate if there are options to extend that and make it possible for more cars to wait in the lane.