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Lutz Lake Fern Roadway Construction To Start

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By ELIZABETH LEE BROWN/The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 7, 2007

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LUTZ The first signs of an upcoming $56 million overhaul of Lutz-Lake Fern Road will be visible as early as January with the construction of a new high school and a Suncoast Parkway interchange.

Once those two projects kick off, Hillsborough County will begin expanding the road from two to four lanes. Residents should expect to live in a construction zone for the next four years.

Planners from the county, the school district, and the Florida Turnpike Enterprise gave an overview of the multi-faceted roadway widening project on Thursday to about 150 people at Martinez Middle School.

Project Manager Edd Arnold, of the county's public works department, said the Lutz-Lake Fern Road widening will be split into two phases.

Phase one expands the road to four lanes from 1,000-feet west of the Suncoast Parkway to the new school entrance. That driveway will have a traffic signal and serve three schools – McKitrick Elementary, Martinez Middle, and the new 2,500-student high school.

The roadway widening and the ramps will be finished before the new school opens in August 2009.

The second phase, which will widen Lutz-Lake Fern Road from the school to North Dale Mabry Highway, will begin in mid-2009 and be finished by September 2012, Arnold said.

Alison Stettner, the turnpike's regional planning administrator, said the contract to design and build the ramps will be awarded by January and construction will begin in early 2008.

The interchange opening will be a no-toll facility with traffic signals at each ramp, she said.

Construction of the two-story high school will take about 18 months and begin in January, said Dave Borisenko, the district's planning facilities manager.

Reporter Elizabeth Lee Brown can be reached at (813) 865-1502 or ebrown@tampatrib.com.

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