Punta Gorda City Council came to a consensus Thursday regarding decorative improvements to city infrastructure for the roadway resurfacing project on U.S. 41 northbound from William Street to the Peace River Bridge. The Florida Department of Transportation project will require a local funding agreement, with the city responsible for $612,588.
The city’s cost will be put toward decorative signal poles, streetlights and a shared-use path from Retta Esplanade to the Peace River Bridge. Funding is available following the city’s decision to not move forward with the U.S. 41 bridge lighting and Route 17 complete street projects totaling $620,000.
The local funding agreement represents about 10% of the total project cost of nearly $6.7 million, with the rest funded by FDOT.
While resurfacing is the objective, other main components of the project include intersection improvements, including a roundabout at Carmalita Street and a new traffic signal at Retta Esplanade. Other improvements include streetlights to accommodate the Carmalita roundabout and another at the bridge approach.
The project will also feature pedestrian facilities such as crosswalk upgrades, high intensity activated crosswalk pedestrian signals, sidewalk upgrades and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance.
The three-part project started in 2020, with the planning study completed and the engineering/design phase expected to be completed at the end of this year. 
The city had the option to accept all, some or none of the decorative enhancements before FDOT began to draft an agreement, Punta Gorda Principal Planner Mitchell Austin said.
“If any of these items City Council wishes to fund, based on that, we’ll go to FDOT staff and request that they prepare local funding agreements and then finalize the project engineering to include or exclude those items, and then prepare that local funding agreement for future Council consideration,” he said. “That’s where we’ll have the final dollar amounts.”
Decorative improvements are an additional cost because FDOT will only fund basic improvements, with enhancements and its funding left up to the city.
“That’s why we’re going through this, because we can just allow FDOT to put in all their standard items and life goes on. But in order to make our city decorative and the way that we want to see it, I think it’s important to really go through this and make sure that it’s standard throughout the city of how we want it to look,” Council Member Melissa Lockhart said.
Lockhart and other council members agreed city infrastructure should be cohesive with the rest of the city. 
Along with kickstarting a more cohesive look downtown with enhanced improvements, the project is also expected to advance goals of walkability and strategic investment within downtown Punta Gorda, according to FDOT.
“The project supports financial and economic sustainability by advancing and promoting local business development,” Assistant City Manager Melissa Reichert said. “Walkable environments correlate to increased local spending at businesses and often facilitate the interest in and development of new small businesses.”
Construction is funded in the next fiscal year, Austin said. Given Council’s consensus, FDOT is now preparing the local funding agreement for Council consideration.
