By Mark Howell

It won’t be the mega disruption we’ve been experiencing for months on North Roosevelt Boulevard, yet the work soon to get underway on the Caroline Street corridor at the Key West Bight will be “intrusive,” anticipates the city’s port and marine services director, Doug Bradshaw.

 

 

“But it will be a beautiful street,” he adds.

 

 

The design drawings for the redevelopment are being completed over the next three to four months and the various parts of the project will then be sent out to bid.

 

 

Estimation of a completion date hovers around April 2015. The final tally is expected to reach $3½ million.

 

 

A major part of the work will center on storm-water drains in the area, while Caroline Street between Simonton and the ferry terminal will become “a whole new roadway,” predicts Bradshaw.

 

 

Improved paving and landscaping will ultimately be a boon to all businesses along the strip. Contractors will be making an effort to lessen the impact during construction.

 

 

The redevelopment is designed to bring more foot traffic to the area. “You’ll see a lot more people coming to the Bight as an alternative to Duval,” predicts the director. “It’s a drastic improvement to help the Bight.”

 

 

Ground has already been broken at the site of Pritam Singh’s new seaport hotel in the heart of the area.

 

 

Bradshaw himself has spent more than a decade with the port authority plus eight years overseeing the Key West Bight. He is now the marine and port services director while still the city’s engineering director.

 

 

Meanwhile there has been a realignment of responsibilities and duties throughout the city’s waterfront, designed to “make for a more efficient and effective operation, providing for better accountability and a more consistent approach in the interpretations of policy and procedures affecting the waterfront environment,” declares a release from the city.

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