by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
One of Riverside Avenue’s most prominent tenants is asking the FDOT to speed up construction on an interchange connecting the area to the City’s major highways. But State officials say work can’t start before the Super Bowl.
Haskell Company chair Preston Haskell asked in a letter delivered last week to the Florida Department of Transportation to start preparatory work before the February game. Haskell said work on the I-95/I-10 interchange was “too important and has been delayed too long to endure an arbitrary and unnecessary delay of yet another six months.” The project, budgeted for around $160 million, is scheduled to take five and a half years. The current start date is scheduled for Feb. 14.
That doesn’t satisfy Haskell, who said he was told by Gov. Jeb Bush in the summer of 2000 that construction would start by 2002. Since then, Haskell said he’s been “routinely, bitterly” disappointed by repeated delays.
“This project isn’t for just Riverside’s and my benefit,” said Haskell. “It’s an important project citywide.”
Once complete, Haskell said the project would relieve traffic congestion and improve access to the interstates.
“We’ve been waiting for four years, and the FDOT tells me the project will take five and a half to six years. That’s 10 years the Riverside district has not had reasonable access to I-10 and I-95,” he said.
FDOT spokesperson Mike Goldman said the State decided to push construction back after meeting with the mayor’s office and the Super Bowl Host Committee. Mayor John Peyton has made it his policy not to have construction under way when about 100,000 visitors arrive in Jacksonville for the Feb. 6 game.
“This area is a real gateway to the City,” said Goldman. “You have to think about how many thousands of people are going to see it.”
Even if the game weren’t coming to Jacksonville, Goldman said it would be difficult to move up the start date. Although the FDOT will start taking bids this month, Goldman said it could take months to arrive at a winner.
“Even without the Super Bowl, there’s not a lot of time to be saved between now and then,” he said.
Ongoing construction in the area has been frequently cited as an obstacle to the revitalization of the neighboring Brooklyn neighborhood. Road work, and accompanying traffic snarls, have become familiar sights in the area. Construction on both Riverside Avenue and nearby Forest Street is scheduled to finish early next year. The interchange is designed to connect with those roads when finished. All the more reason to proceed quickly, said Haskell.
Haskell said he discussed the project with a past FDOT secretary and district secretary and that all concurred “that this is a project of high importance and priority for both safety and capacity reasons.” Haskell said these officials told him in past conversations “that construction would have begun by now.”
Goldman said environmental considerations forced construction to go ahead at a deliberate pace. The construction site used to serve as a dumping ground for incinerated ash, and Goldman said the FDOT had to ensure construction followed environmental regulations governing the clean up.
“We’re under the environmental microscope on this project,” said Goldman. “We want to make sure it’s done right, correct and within the law.”