Hundreds of Millions Invested in Road Improvements Across Northern Lee and Charlotte Counties

Road improvements in northern Lee and Charlotte counties are expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars due to rapid growth.
Plans include widening State Road 31 and Burnt Store Road, as well as a potential new I-75 interchange and an east-west connector.
Lee County commissioners face a list of 15 unfunded road projects totaling $1.3 billion, highlighting the financial strain of keeping up with growth.

The continuing rapid growth in northern Lee County and Charlotte County has already meant hundreds of millions of dollars in road improvements.

And it will mean hundreds of millions more.

Road planners from both counties and the state got together in mid-February to agree to joint priorities and plans. Those plans call for finishing the 4-laning of State Road 31 and of Burnt Store Road.

The State Road 31 work is currently being done, paid for by the special taxing district that supports infrastructure for Babcock Ranch. The Burnt Store work is the responsibility of Lee County, with a target date of 2031.

Current state estimates are that work will cost just less than $190 million, though Lee County lists it as an unfunded $268 million need.

Babcock Ranch continues to grow along State Road 31, and Lee County is in various stages of approving controversial development that could put thousands more residents in that part of northeastern Lee. The city of Cape Coral is facing that same sort of growth in northwest Lee, as is southern Charlotte County.

Longer-term plans call for a potential new Interstate 75 interchange at about Mile Marker 174, between Bayshore Road and Tucker's Grade to improve hurricane evacuation times for Cape Coral and a new east-west road between Burnt Store and U.S. 41 and eventually on to State Road 31.

Money is being spent by both counties and the Babcock Ranch Independent Special District is building a new State Road 31 between State Road 78 and Babcock's main entrance. Extending that 4-laning south to State Road 80 is also in the planning.

On the long-range radar — if not yet in formal plans — is a new east-west connector between Burnt Store and U.S. 41. Somewhere north of Zemel Road and south of Notre Dame Blvd. in Charlotte County.

Plans call for a 2-lane road built between 2030 and 2035, expanded to four lanes by 2045. It would eventually extend to S.R. 31. There is no money budgeted for the new road, which Charlotte intends to put into its long-range 2050 plan.

L.K. Landam, FDOT secretary for southwest Florida, told a joint meeting of the Lee County and Charlotte County-Punta Gorda Metropolitan Planning Organizations that the state is investing $300 million in area roads.

Lee Commissioner Brian Hamman wanted to know if the state could take ownership of Burnt Store, since it is a major road that crosses the county line between population centers.

"Could the state get it done quicker?" he asked. "I don't see the down-side."

Don Scott, executive director of the Lee MPO, said Burnt Store used to be a state road, but the state transferred ownership to the counties many years ago.

"I don't think the state's in the business of taking them back," Scott said.

The state isn't, Landam said.

"There's always the opportunity for conversation," he said. "Is there a funding opportunity? And who do you talk to? You could ask your Legislative Delegation, but there is no new money."

That could be harsh news, at least in Lee County. In a subsequent workshop, Lee County commissioners heard about 15 unfunded road projects looming a few years down the road — projects projected to cost $1.3 billion.

The list presented to commissioners at the workshop is

∎ Sunshine Boulevard, $70 million

∎ Buckingham Road, $79 million

∎ Hickory Bridge, $102 million

∎ Ortiz Avenue, four lane from MLK Jr. Boulevard to Luckett Road, $52 million

∎ Corkscrew Road, from Three Oaks to I-75, $16 million

∎ Burnt Store Road, $268 million

∎ Corkscrew from Alico to Verdana Village, $86 million

∎ Joel Boulevard, from 17th Street West to State Road 80, $81 million

∎ Veterans Parkway, from Chiquita to Skyline, $34 million

∎ Sunshine, from 23rd Street West to Lee Boulevard, $57 million

∎Sunshine, from Lee Boulevard to 75th Street West, $210 million

∎Ortiz, from Luckett Road to Palm Beach Boulevard, $44 million

∎ The Alva Bridge at Broadway, $34 million

∎ Corkscrew Road, from Verdana Village to the county line, $183 million

∎Orange River Bridge, $7 million.