County officials held an open house Dec. 8 for the public to see the proposed plans for the Palm Valley sidewalk project.
“It’s very simply about bringing out the community and letting them know that we’ve got a project going on that’s looking to build sidewalks on Palm Valley Road,” County Engineer Duane Kent said.
The open house was held at THE PLAYERS Community Senior Center.
According to Kent, the project will consist of two phases down Palm Valley Road, with the first being from Landrum Lane to Canal Boulevard and the second phase would continue it up to TPC Sawgrass.
“The first phase is ready to go to bid, and we recently accepted $800,000 from the State of Florida through the DOT as a grant fund to help us with the cost of the sidewalk,” Kent said. “With that $800,000, we have a total project budget of $2.3 million, which has been approved by the Board of County Commissioners.”
A lighter crowd was on hand for the open house compared to open houses for other projects in the past.
“Sidewalks generally are a pretty simple project, and there are not a lot of people that are directly impacted by the work itself,” Kent said. “There will be a lot of beneficiaries of the work as we move forward.”
Once phase one is through the biding portion, the contractor has been allotted 180 days, which is about six months, to complete the phase.
At about that time, the phase two designs are expected to be finished and be ready to be bid out as well.
Sidewalks are widely regarded as an increased safety measure because it gets pedestrians away from walking on the roadway and gives them a much safer option.
“There’s been support for a sidewalk in this community for a long time,” Kent said. “Sidewalks are almost a no-brainer. Everyone wants one in their neighborhood, and as St. Johns County grows, we’re requiring developments to put in sidewalks.”
However, Kent stated that the major issue is that sidewalks will be disjointed with gaps between one sidewalk and the next.
“We’ve been really looking to target and fill those gaps in communities like Palm Valley, and really meet those needs as they arise,” Kent said.
Sidewalks can seem like a fairly easy venture, but according to Kent, there are a lot of factors that go into making it happen from an engineering standpoint.
“In a lot of cases sidewalks are very easy to put in, because the roadside is flat and the drainage works, but there are also a lot of cases, especially in one like this, where there are a lot of drainage issues and there are roadside ditches, which you have to go around or sometimes will have to pipe the ditches. Those ditches are also wetlands, so we have to go and get wetland permits from the state and water management district. You don’t just snap your fingers and put a sidewalk in.”
However, the challenges presented with this project have been figured out and Kent is confident in the plan that has been laid out.
After decades of hoping for a sidewalk, it looks like residents will finally see that come to fruition with this latest project.
