Roadwork Resumes Along Bayshore Boulevard

What do you think of the project? Will it be a major hassle? Post a comment below.

Depending on how you choose to look at it, you can either thank or blame the Republican National Convention for delaying the sewer work that is being done along Bayshore Boulevard. 

With staying at the Safety Harbor Resort and Spa, construction crews could not dig up the area immediately outside of the resort until the convention was over at the end of last week.

Then came the Labor Day holiday weekend, which pushed the start of Phase I of the $2.2 million project back another couple days. 

But the work resumed Wednesday, complete with new stop signs, detours and the general chaos that goes along with road construction.

“Parts of Main Street will be closed for a couple of months,” City Manager Matt Spoor said. “We wanted to do it all before the RNC, but we ran into delays.” 

The current phase of the project, which is alleviating storm water runoff and aiding drainage along Bayshore behind the Spa, will take approximately two weeks. During this phase, traffic is being rerouted to Iron Age Street behind the Harbour Pointe complex and then back onto Main Street. 

Phase II will close off the intersection in front of the Spa completely. That part of the project is scheduled to begin on September 18 and is estimated to last nearly a month, with repaving of the road to follow immediately afterward.

The whole project is scheduled to be completed by November 17th, according to the city.

“The four-way intersection will be closed for three weeks,” Spoor said. “It’s going to be tough, but it has to be done. It’s never a good time to close Main Street.” 

The work will force motorists to adjust to new routes and even new stop signs. 

That’s why a couple Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies were stationed along the corridor to help drivers get acclimated to the changes.

“We came out here about an hour ago,” Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputy Chuck Skipper said late Wednesday afternoon. “We thought we’d come out to help prevent an accident before we had to respond to one.” 

Skipper and his partner, Deputy Warren Fisher, were manning the intersection of Main Street and Second Avenue South, where a pair of new stop signs were temporarily installed to help control the flow of traffic. 

Skipper believes motorists will quickly get used to the temporary inconvenience. 

“We’ll be back out here tomorrow morning during rush hour,” he said. “Hopefully people will have it figured out after that and make adjustments accordingly."