Lee County is thinking outside the box to keep the Alico Road extension project, set to give Lehigh Acres commuters another option when heading west and south, on schedule.
The county has a $2 billion list of 10 road projects for the next decade but $986 million is unfunded. Phases two and three of the Alico project were scheduled to begin in late 2027, but because of cost increases, it didn’t fit into the budget until 2030 and won’t be finished until the first quarter of 2033.
Lee County Transportation Director Rob Price offered an alternative to county commissioners during a workshop earlier in April that will push the project completion up by six months.
The first phase, the widening of Alico Road from Airport Haul to Green Meadow roads, now will be broken into two phases. The first phase will include underpasses for wildlife and other mitigation, but the widening of the road will be delayed so the county can use the saved money to move forward with phase two.
Phase two is the most expensive portion, costing $199.5 million, and the most important, Price told commissioners. The new plan will be to build two northbound lanes from State Road 82 to Alico Road for two-lane traffic while building the southbound lanes.
The final phase would be finishing the widening of Alico Road from Airport Haul to Green Meadow and widening of Sunshine Boulevard between State Road 82 and 23rd Street.
“I want to commend you, this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking I’ve wanted to see for a long time,” Commissioner Brian Hamman said. “It’s fantastic. … Thanks for thinking about trying to get traffic on here as quickly as possible.”
Price also suggested rethinking the widening of the Midpoint Bridge from four to six lanes. The project ranks 10th on the list and was added in 2021 when the cost was $194 million. Now it’s estimated at $589 million.
“The return on investment isn’t there,” Price said.
He said keep the widening project on the list but do a traffic study that includes looking at the Colonial Boulevard-Veterans Parkway corridor to see if there’s a way to improve the intersections at Summerlin Road, McGregor Boulevard and Country Club where there is congestion.
Tier two, which ranks as a project 10 to 20 years out, is $1.3 billion short-funded, Price said. Sunshine Boulevard extension is No. 1 on the list, but commissioners were most interested in the 5.7-mile widening of Burnt Store Road to the Charlotte County line, No. 2 on the list.
“I would love to see us finish the process,” Hamman said.
Planning and design should be done by the end of the year, but money is the only thing holding back construction, Price said.
Commissioners asked Price to see if there was any way to finance the project. Charlotte County widened its portion of the road with special assessments.
