Wednesday, October 15, 2014, 6:00pm
Gaythering Hotel, 1409 Lincoln Road
City Attendee: Mayor Philip Levine; Jimmy Morales, City Manager; Eric Carpenter, Dir. Public Works; David Martinez, Dir. CIP; Caroline DeFreeze, Community Resources Coordinator; Alex Miranda, Mayor’s Chief of Staff; Major Mark Causey; Cap. Wayne Jones
Minutes of the Meeting (by Irma Laracuente)
We will start as an open discussion about what the meeting is about. As of April 1, 2013 FDOT Alton road project started. The project will be completed by the end of the year. However even after Alton Road is open, there are pumps that have not been installed. These few pumps left will not affect the traffic or cause congestion/massive construction. We have already seen significant change preventing massive flooding along West Avenue Corridor.
The idea has always been once Alton Road is done, they will begin the West Avenue project. The budget is available. The mayor and city manager are discussing the idea of the resident’s current construction fatigue and potentially giving the residents and business owners a break for 2-3 years before commencing the Streetscape project. They want to reach out to the community for their opinion on what would be better for us.
As per David Martinez from CIP, the project from starting to end is estimated to average 24 months. As of now they are putting together the design criteria package to submit and move on to the design build stage. They anticipate this to be ready for a bid out process by the beginning of the year (2015). The initial goal is for them to simultaneously get it done alongside the Alton Road project and potentially request a credit from FDOT for repaving the whole area.
Although the process for budding/design is at the beginning of the year, the actual “groundbreaking” would be in the late summer. As per David there is no large benefit or consequence whether we wait 2-3 years or start now.
Potentially there may be a slight impact for commercial however the work to be done isn’t going to be more drastic then what Alton Road has gone through. Alton Road will be flowing therefore shouldn’t be drastic as per the Mayor.
The mayor recommends we reach out to the community. He would like a letter from WAvNA stating whether we want this “break” or just start now.
Residents inquired if the project will be done in stages or not. However the city isn’t that far out in the project to determine so.
A few things to keep in mind, is that although the Alton Road corridor is open, The Venetian way will be closed and hopefully reopened before we start streetscape.
Residents and mayor agree of other topics such as looking for potential ordinance in regards to the loading area for the commercial vehicles. WAvNA has reached out to the city to discuss.
Other suggestions of bus stop restructuring in the Streetscape plan. Currently they do back up the traffic when they stop. A suggestion was made to moving them to the beginning of each block.
Caroline and Mayor suggest a survey for the start time of WavNa constructions. Maybe the city sends a letter to the presidents of associations, we should discuss with Alex from the Mayor’s office.
An inquiry about the Marriott and West Avenue Bridge came up. This will be postponed and discussed at the WavNa meeting on October 21st. The city mentioned due to the West Ave Bridge impacting 17th Street, do note that the delay of Streetscape will delay the bridge.
Meeting adjourned at 6:54pm.
