by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
With two major downtown traffic-altering projects on the horizon, the Florida Department of Transportation plans to formally keep downtown workers and businesses in the loop through a new entity called the Downtown Coordinating Committee.
Next Tuesday at 10:30 a.m., the FDOT will hold an open meeting at its Urban Office on Irene Street in Riverside. During the meeting, FDOT representatives will talk about the closure of the Main Street Bridge — which will be repainted in time for the 2005 Super Bowl — and street closings associated with construction of the new $211 million county courthouse complex.
“The meetings are open to anybody and we are sending out the letter today,” said FDOT public information officer Mike Goldman Friday. “We are targeting the major organizations, but they are open to anybody.”
The Main Street Bridge will be closed regularly over the next months as structural work is done and the bridge is repainted. Starting later this summer, the bridge will be closed at night and on weekends. Construction on the new courthouse, which is scheduled to be done in late 2005, will require several temporary street closures and and a couple of permanent closures.
Goldman said the FDOT realized that both projects will create changes in the traffic pattern downtown which, in turn, will directly affect dozens of downtown businesses. Regular, open meetings were employed when the FDOT widened San Jose Boulevard, but Goldman says this is the first the FDOT and the City have agreed to meet regularly with the public and local businesses in an effort to inform everyone as to the status of a project.
“The purpose of these meetings is two-fold,” said Goldman, explaining plans are to hold monthly meetings until the projects are complete. “One, we want to give people the best information we can about the status of the projects and let them plan accordingly. Two, we want to get the traffic coordinated with the City and have a regular dialogue with the City.”
Goldman said the San Jose Boulevard meetings demonstrated to the FDOT that local business owners and residents appreciated hearing regular reports about the project and whether or not it was on time, running potentially late or even set to wrap up early.
“If anything, it gave them peace of mind,” said Goldman. “The meetings really helped them understand the idiosyncrasies of road construction. The information will be pertinent and time sensitive. I think it will be a worthwhile endeavor. These meetings will be a first-hand opportunity to get direct information.”
Goldman said courthouse project manager Chris Boruch is supportive of the meetings and plans to attend many of them.