Gulf to Bay Highway, Back Beach Road Inching Along
PSJ Star - January 22, 2009 - 9:31AM
It's a game of hurry up and wait; particularly in this economic climate.
In a surprise visit to the Jan. 13 Mexico Beach city council meeting, representatives from PBS&J tried to explain and clarify the scope and path of two highway projects that will directly impact Mexico Beach and Gulf County residents and property owners.
The two projects are the Gulf to Bay Highway and the Gulf Coast Parkway.
PBS&J is the Tallahassee-based engineering firm overseeing both projects for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT).
Ever since the re-alignment of a section of U.S. 98 in Gulf County in 2006, confusion has existed over the rest of that project (Gulf to Bay Highway), and the other project (Gulf Coast Parkway) which will cut through Bay County from Mexico Beach to State 22 and Star Avenue in Panama City, eventually linking with U.S.231.
The re-alignment of U.S. 98 in Gulf County, just west of Port St. Joe, was Phase One of the Gulf to Bay Highway.
It took a four-mile section of the old highway off the coast and moved it approximately one mile inland through the St. Joe Company development of WindMark Beach.
St. Joe donated the land necessary for the state to move the highway inland, situating the new section of highway through the center of the WindMark development, which allowed access to both sides of the development and an unobstructed view and access to St. Joseph Bay for many future WindMark property owners.
Phase Two
Phase Two of the Gulf to Bay Highway project will continue the new segment of U.S. 98 toward the west. It will pick up just east of the public beach access on the west end of the WindMark development, about one-quarter mile east of the east end of St. Joe Beach, running north of (behind) St. Joe Beach and Beacon Hill, connecting to County 386 slightly north of its junction with U.S. 98, at the east end of Mexico Beach.
It will connect with County 386 approximately one-and-one-half miles north of U.S. 98, according to Kim Woliver, a PBS&J Design study engineer working on the project.
According to PBS&J representative Greg Garrett, a senior planner in Project Development and Environment who spoke at the Jan. 13 meeting, the second stage design study for Phase Two of the Gulf to Bay Highway is "more than 90 percent complete," but further work is on hold pending final contracts for ownership of the land. After contracts are signed, the permitting phase will begin, he said.
According to Woliver, the other PBS&J representative at the meeting, most of the right-of-way land for Phase Two is St. Joe-owned, with one section owned by Florida Power and one by Gulf County.
According to Woliver, the minimum right of way on the 5.3 mile project is a 200-foot wide corridor designated as a rural, two-lane road, including enough land to widen the road to four lanes in the future.
Woliver said at this time there are no funds for the $40 million Phase Two, and when work begins, it will take a minimum of three years to complete.
Phase Three
Phase Three of the Gulf to Bay Highway project will be the so-called "back beach road" running behind (north of) Mexico Beach and hooking south back into U.S. 98 within the recently expanded western city limits at the boundary of Tyndall Air Force Base.
Mexico Beach extended its western city limits in early 2007 when, at the St. Joe Company's request, the city annexed the company's proposed Bonfire Beach development.
Bonfire Beach is designed to cover the land from the west side of the city canal and town entrance - what used to be the city limits - west to the Tyndall Air Force Base boundary, on both the complete beach side of U.S. 98 and significant acreage on the north side of the highway.
Phase Three of the Gulf to Bay Highway will cross land owned by three property owners, all of whom have "cooperated," Woliver said. He told the audience there would be "no impact in Mexico Beach with property acquisition in the city limits" for Phase Three.
According to Woliver, plans for Phase Three are at 60 percent completion and PBS&J hoped to complete the design phase for that project by the end of this year. However, there is currently no state funding available for Phase Three of the Gulf to Bay Highway.
Where Ends Meet?
A copy of the contract plans for Phase Three obtained by The Star details the project as being 3.5 miles long with two bridges included. Right-of-way delineation of the main road shows 68 feet from the center line on the south side of the road and 132 feet from the center on the north side.
Bubba Harmon, one of the three property owners involved in the land acquisition for Phase Three, said the back beach road would begin on County 386 north of the first bridge at the curve north of the current location of Harmon Heavy Equipment.
According to Harmon, the state has already tested and certified soil core samples at that location.
Harmon and his wife Barbara are to sign the final paperwork later this month transferring title of their portion of the land needed for the Phase Three project.
Contracts are pending with the St. Joe Company and another landowner to obtain the remaining land.
The contract plans for the back beach road show a western connector road that is east of the U.S. 98-Tyndall link.
The connector road design shows a right of way from the center line of 50 feet on one side and 50 to 75 feet on the other.
In a telephone conversation with Garrett, he said when he and Rosemary Woods had worked on the initial PD and E phase of the Gulf to Bay Highway, there was no connector road leading from Phase Three into Mexico Beach proper.
Woods is an associate vice president of PBS&J, project manager of the Gulf Coast Parkway PD and E phase, and was the PD and E project manager for the Gulf to Bay Highway.
Garrett said the PD and E phase of the Gulf to Bay Highway ended in 2004, and the project has been in the design study phase since then, with a different group of PBS&J engineers who could easily have added a connector road.
It was not possible to determine exactly where the connector road links to U.S. 98 on the contract plans, although a portion of the plans indicate the connector road will use a portion of an existing dirt road and will be just west of Salt Creek.
Neither Garrett nor Woliver could say where the connector road would meet U.S. 98.
When the back beach road is built, according to Mexico Beach council member Robert Ginsberg at the Jan. 13 meeting, there could be as many as five connector roads into the three-mile length of Mexico Beach proper.
"We will let the citizens help make the decision on the number of [connector] roads, but that's not in design now," Ginsberg said.
In phone conversations with both Garrett and Woliver on Jan. 19, the question of who owns connector roads leading from state highways and who controls right-of-ways along either side of connector roads could not be clearly or definitively answered.
Garrett deferred the question to Woliver, saying his PD and E work did not involve such matters.
Woliver said sometimes right-of-ways fall under control of FDOT, sometimes under local ownership - it simply depended, he said, on what kind of discussions the involved local governments conducted with FDOT.
How many connector roads would run from Phase Three into Mexico Beach proper "is something the community would need to think about as the project proceeds," Woliver said.
When questioned, he said the number of connectors is generally "a function of the roadway classification."
He said on primary roads connectors are placed about a mile apart, in conjunction with projected future needs of the road.
Woliver said on such a road as the Phase Three segment, "it probably wouldn't have access roads," but that was just his guess and he did not know.
In an unrelated question, when asked why the cover sheet of the contract plans showed an overall view of the project area and the road overlaid on a map that clearly stated "Mexico Beach pop. 632," Woliver said it was just a preliminary cover sheet and the designers had probably clipped it from an old county map.
He said he would definitely look into it and have the designers update the cover sheet.