Cross Creek Blvd. Widening Could Begin Late This Summer

By Matt Wiley

The bids are in and a contractor has been selected to get the ball rolling on completing the expansion of Cross Creek Blvd. into a four-lane road from Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. to Morris Bridge Rd. in New Tampa.

Although the busy roadway begins as four lanes at BBD, it narrows to two lanes just past the entrance to the Cory Lake Isles community.

City of Tampa transportation manager Jean Duncan says that Kamminga & Roodvoets (K & R), Inc. — the same contractor that widened BBD from Pebble Creek Dr. to Palm Springs Blvd. — submitted a bid for $4.9 million, about half a million dollars cheaper than City engineers originally estimated. K & R’s bid was approved by the Tampa City Council on March 20. Five other bids were received during the bidding period, which opened on February 4.

Duncan says that construction activity should commence early this summer. “(The Transportation Department) feels like this project really is going to benefit the area,” Duncan explains, adding that in addition to more travel lanes, the project also will install new medians at the two entrances to Heritage Isles at both Grand Isle Dr. and Sandy Pointe Dr. The widening project also will install a six-foot sidewalk on one side of the road, as well as a 12-foot-wide path on the other, along with on-road bike lanes in both directions.

Stoplights also will be installed at the intersection of Cory Lake Dr. and Cross Creek Blvd. and the intersection with Morris Bridge Rd. at the east end of the road will be updated to accommodate the additional lanes.

The 2-mile stretch of Cross Creek Blvd. that will be widened is expected to take about 18 months, with traffic maintained throughout on the current lanes. The project will be paid for with impact fees, a $1.5 million contribution from Hillsborough County (part of a maintenance agreement for the road since Cross Creek Blvd. sits on both city and county land in some areas) and $900,000 from the Florida Department of Transportation that is left over from a more-than-$1.2-million earmark from 2005 to both study and design the widening project.