SMR starts engineering process for roadway

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Schroeder-Manatee Ranch President and CEO Rex Jensen is ready to make things happen.

Jensen announced Tuesday that SMR, developer of Lakewood Ranch, has started the process for engineering Lakewood Ranch Boulevard from Communications Parkway, in the Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park, south to Fruitville Road.

“I intend to put this on the rocket sled and hopefully people’s cheeks will be blowing back,” Jensen said. “I don’t intend to let a lot of grass grow under it.

“It’s time to get serious about this project and not talk about traffic problems,” he said. “We’ll teach the world what a sense of urgency is.”

In an email to Sarasota County Administrator Tom Harmer, Jensen requested the county designate a point person for the project and consider funding additional improvements, specifically:

• construction of four lanes, instead of the SMR-required two, south of SMR’s property; and

• elements such as utilities the county may wish installed during road construction.

In a followup email, Harmer agreed to set up a meeting as soon as possible.

Jensen also said SMR is ready to coordinate and fund its $7.5 million contribution for a bridge over I-75 to Cattlemen Road. Doing so will make the project “shovel ready” to allow flexibility in available funding mechanisms. Engineering for the project also is necessary so SMR knows what Lakewood Ranch Boulevard needs to tie into and work around.

“This has to have a conscious, very focused sense of urgency,” Jensen said of moving forward. “This is a big, tough project. It’s going to be a heavy, Normandy-style beach invasion. This road should have been built 15 years ago.”

SMR is tasked with constructing the roughly 3.25-mile extension of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard based on approvals for its 5,500-acre Villages of Lakewood Ranch South project, located south of the Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park, in Sarasota.

Jensen said he plans to construct the roadway before development triggers would require him to do so — likely in two segments so he can expedite both the engineering and construction processes.

The decision to move forward hinged on approvals from the Sarasota County Commission Oct. 8, which set the alignment for the southernmost portion of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard’s extension, from about Richardson Road south to Fruitville Road. (See map.)

It extends Lakewood Ranch Boulevard south from SMR’s property at the Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park to what is now called Wendell Kent Road. The roadway continues south, past Church of Hope and parallel to I-75, before turning eastward on Richardson Road and jogging across a drainage canal at Coburn Road. It then heads east, just south of Sarasota Mennonite Church, and turns southward to align with Coburn Road, on the other side of Fruitville.

Jensen had asked for as much flexibility in design as possible.

“Some of the property owners want a simple road,” Jensen said, noting SMR-built roadways have landscaping and other attributes. “I want some effort put into talking with the residents and seeing what they want. When we build things on our property, we just do it.”

“We’ve got to try to help people impacted by it,” he said.

Jensen said he supported the chosen alignment because it had the least impact to homeowners along Richardson Road and Fox Creek and Ranchero drives.

Sarasota County engineer Jim Harriott said as part of the design, the county plans to disconnect Richardson Road so drivers of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard would not continue into those communities.

The extension will provide the first north-south connector east of I-75 from University Parkway to Fruitville Road.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].