By Ed Offley
For motorists who for years have endured the stresses and strains from Panama City Beach’s ongoing street modernization program, a word of caution.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
The annual Capital Improvements Schedule approved by City Council on May 22 lists four new major street projects that will begin development in the current 2024/25 fiscal year. All four projects will take four years to complete with a total projected cost of nearly $200 million.
They are part of a project list that includes twenty-eight street modernization projects and twenty-one utility modernization expansion developments.
The pricetag for the four projects dwarfs the $75.91 million the city has spent since it created the Community Redevelopment Agency in 2001. Nevertheless, it is still but a fraction of the total $748,419,830 cost for upgrading more than 20 miles of city streets and island-wide water and sewer infrastructure. (The infrastructure improvements are separate from the ongoing $122 million widening of Panama City Beach Parkway from four to six lanes. That package of projects is being managed by the Florida Department of Transportation [FDOT].)
City Building and Planning Director Mel Leonard told PCB Life that the schedule “is more than a list of priorities but [comes] with the expectation that there is a funding source that can be used at some point to actually make the improvements.” Nevertheless, delays could occur due to funding or higher-than-anticipated costs, he added.
Each of the four new projects will include the modernization elements seen in earlier phases of the Community Redevelopment Agency’s street improvements, officials say. This includes expanding the right-of-way from two to four traffic lanes; constructing underground stormwater drains; relocating power and utility lines; building pedestrian sidewalks; paving the new roadways and installing landscaping.
Three of the four new projects are individual “segments” spanning a 5.1-mile stretch of Front Beach Road from Lullwater Drive just west of Pier Park to Richard Jackson Boulevard. They are:
* FBR Segment 4.1 from Lullwater Drive to Hills Road: $59.7 million;
* FBR Segment 4.2 from Hills Road to the intersection with Hutchison Boulevard: $60.3 million;
* FBR Segment 4.3 from Hutchison Boulevard to Richard Jackson Boulevard: $64.5 million.
The fourth project is the planned four-laning of Hills Road between Panama City Beach Parkway and Front Beach Road, also slated to begin this year. During the four years of design and construction, the city will spend $14.91 million on that project.
City officials established the Hills Road expansion timeline prior to a dispute that erupted between residents of the Summerwood neighborhood and the developers of the planned $80 million Shell Point surf park, whose eastern end will front on Hills Road across from the subdivision. Residents at a May 22 Council meeting voiced concern that the surf park’s construction traffic would gridlock the neighborhood entrance on Hills Road and urged the Council to explore accelerating the construction timeline.
PCB Public Works Director John Adair told PCB Life that he and other city officials are well aware of residents’ concern. “There are many phases of the Hills Road project yet to come before a definitive timeline of the project can be determined,” Adair said, including a formal survey of the corridor, right-of-way acquisition, permitting and other milestones.
“We’re exploring some other options for remedies to the Hills Road/Summerwood situation that can be implemented on a quicker timeline,” apart from the four-year construction schedule, he added. He declined to discuss them in detail.
According to the schedule, four ongoing CRA projects will be completed this year. They include the $20.9 million upgrade of South Arnold Road from Panama City Beach Parkway and Front Beach Road from SR 79 to Lullwater Drive (the Arnold Road segment is now complete); a $3.5 million project widening and improving Clarence Avenue; construction of a $2.1 million traffic roundabout on North Richard Jackson Boulevard, and the $6.2 million roadway elevation of Alf Coleman Road from Panama City Beach Parkway to Hutchison Boulevard.
Street improvements listed to begin during the 2028/29 fiscal year or later include Alf Coleman Road from Panama City Beach Parkway to Hutchison Boulevard; Clara Avenue south of Panama City Beach Parkway and Cobb Road south of the parkway. The city’s future planning list also includes two more FDOT projects: Phase III of the Phillip Griffiths Parkway between North Clara Avenue to Chip Seal Parkway, and creation of the West Bay Parkway from SR 79 to US 98 in Walton County.
Meanwhile, as anyone in Panama City Beach with a driver’s license knows, the new construction will create additional traffic delays, blocked intersections, lane closures and other disruptions as part of the cost of progress.
