County Commission Approves Additional $3 Million+ to Cover Power Line Road Extension
by James Coulter
The extension of Power Line Road will be able to move forward now that county commissioners have approved an increase of more than $3 million.
At their regular meeting on Tues. Sep. 16, the Polk County Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to approve an amendment to an infrastructure agreement toward an extension of Power Line Road.
The agreement was to cover the first phase of the extension to provide “a needed north-south parallel corridor to help relieve existing and future congestion along portions of US Highway 27 and US Highway 17/92,” wrote Thado N. Hays, CPM, Concurrency & Entitlements Manager.
Initially, the cost of the improvement through the agreement was $10,805,447. An amendment to that agreement would increase that cost to $14,055,937, a difference of $3,250,490. This increase would “cover increased costs that have occurred due to change order requests,” Hays wrote.
“The funding for this project will be available on October 1, 2025, in the form of impact fee credits (25%) and cash (75%) that is available in the Roads & Drainage CIP under Developer Agreements for Road Improvement projects,” Hays further explained.
The extension would extend Power Line Road from U.S. 17/92 in Davenport to Scenic Highway 17 in Dundee. This road project is considered to be “the largest in Polk County history”and would provide “that long-coveted alternative to U.S. 27,” as reported by the Lakeland Ledger.
