- March 26, 2025
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The finish line for the town of Longboat Key’s underground utilities project is closer.
The project, known as the undergrounding project, reached a milestone of having all known electrical service conversions complete for the project. This means all services to homes and businesses on Longboat Key are operating on the underground system.
Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman presented the update at the Longboat Key town commission’s March 3 meeting.
Brownman said Florida Power & Light (FPL) and its contractor Wilco Electrical will go through and ensure there weren’t any missed connections, but to their knowledge, the conversions are complete.
There are still some feeder lines and risers that need to be taken care of in the last two phases, Phases 3 and 4. Phase 3 extends from the north end of Country Club Shores up to the county line, and Phase 4 goes from the county line to Dream Island Road.
In Phase 3, 93 of the 95, or about 98%, of the required switching orders are complete and in Phase 4, 111 of the estimated 115 switching orders, or about 97%, are complete.
Phase 1 is the southernmost phase, which extends from the New Pass Bridge to the north end of Country Club Shores. Phase 2 is the northernmost phase, which goes from the Longboat Pass Bridge to Dream Island Road. Both are fully complete.
Brownman said another one of FPL’s contractors, Irby Construction, is working throughout the island to complete overhead pole removal.
According to Brownman, FPL estimates final pole removal will be complete no later than June.
“They loudly and clearly hear that we want them to continue to press for sooner than that,” Brownman said. “As soon as we can get these final pieces of Phase 3 and Phase 4, Wilco can do their final conversion work with the feeders and Irby can press through and do those removals that we’re all looking forward to.”
Brownman said the focus of the project now is to convert final feeder lines and risers within Phases 3 and 4 and continue to allow Irby to proceed with pole removal.
“It’s been a long time coming, but it's good to be at this point,” Brownman said.
Despite delays in the project’s timeline, the budget for the undergrounding project is positive.
The budget for the undergrounding project was projected to be $49 million and the town’s finance department is currently tracking a $6 million surplus.
Some of those surplus funds will be applied to enhance street signs and highway lights around the island.
This includes $483,245 for new backlit street signs for the town’s side streets and $1,333,760 for additional highway lights along Gulf of Mexico Drive (GMD).
As Wilco heads toward the end of its part in the undergrounding project, Brownman said the contractor will be asked to address lights that were damaged from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
There was damage to nearly 41 lights along GMD and 76 lights in the neighborhoods. Brownman did not have a timeframe to repair those as of the March 3 meeting.
Town referendums in 2015 and 2016 began the undergrounding process. Voters elected to allow the town to borrow $25.25 million for the GMD portion of the project and $23.85 million for the neighborhoods' portion of the project.
Active construction began in 2019 and had an initial timeline of about three-and-a-half years to get the bulk of the underground infrastructure in place.
One of the most challenging aspects of the project was the need to acquire easements from property owners, which contributed to a lengthened timeline.
In 2023, the project team discovered an oversight existing underground transformers would not be compatible with the new system. The need to order about 20 transformers, coupled with supply chain issues, was a setback for the project.
Along the way, hurricanes also temporarily derailed progress as FPL and its contractors responded to areas in need after the storms. This included Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
