Winter Haven Moves Forward on North Lake Shipp Drive and East Lake Howard SW Upgrades
by James Coulter
Renovations for both North Lake Shipp Drive and East Lake Howard SW are closer to moving forward now that city commissioners have selected a firm for these projects.
At a meeting in late June, the Winter Haven City Commission voted unanimously to approve its consent agenda, with two items pertaining to roadway construction projects. Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. was the firm recommended for both projects.
The first project, the North Lake Shipp Drive Complete Street Project, would reconstruct and realign the roadway, upgrade stormwater and sewer infrastructure, and add sidewalks and a multi-use path.
These improvements will help upgrade “aging” infrastructure “in need of repair and replacement” within the corridor and “enhance connectivity” to make it “safer” and “more accessible” for pedestrians and cyclists, wrote Brittany Hart, Public Works Director.
“North Lake Shipp Drive has become a critical transportation corridor that serves as a key connection between residential neighborhoods, downtown Winter Haven, schools, medical facilities, commercial centers, and major arterial roadways,” she wrote. “As the community has grown, the corridor has evolved into an important route for residents, businesses, and visitors traveling throughout the city.”
Kimley-Horn has been awarded the engineering services agreement for the project. The city will allocate $300,000 from the Transportation and Utility funds to support the design phase.
The second project, the E. Lake Howard Drive SW Complete Street Project, would install a shared-use path, replace aging sewer and water mains, improve drainage, and implement other multimodal transportation enhancements to support a trail along the eastern shore of Lake Howard.
Proposed in 2015, the trail extension would begin at the existing trail terminus near Avenue A NW and continue south to the Lake May–Lake Howard Canal near Avenue D SW. Since then, trail and pedestrian improvements have been completed between Avenue D SW and 15th Street NW. In addition, design work has progressed on pedestrian enhancements extending from 15th Street NW south to Avenue C SW.
City staff determined additional improvements were required along Lake Howard’s eastern coastline “in the same area where the City has explored extending the trail network,” Hart wrote.
These recommended improvements were deemed “consistent with the City’s ‘dig once’ philosophy, which seeks to minimize impacts to residents and maximize the value of capital investments,” she further elaborated.
Kimley-Horn was awarded a design consulting agreement for the project. The City will pay a $212,750 lump sum fee for design services, with funding to be derived from the Transportation Fund.
Kimley-Horn was also selected to help develop a Transportation Safety Action Plan for the City of Winter Haven. The plan “will identify transportation safety concerns throughout the city and establish projects, policies, and strategies to reduce roadway injuries and fatalities while improving safety for all users,” according to Hart.
The plan is being funded in part by $184,000 from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Grant, supplemented by a required $46,000 local match. Altogether, the plan’s development cost totals $230,000.
