After nearly eight years in planning, a project to revamp a one-mile, town owned section of Estero Boulevard that runs from Old San Carlos Boulevard to Bowditch Point Park is in the permitting stage and is set go out for bids by January, according to Public Works Director Jack Green.

And some property owners will have to give up right-of-ways being used for parking, landscaping or other uses, Green said, but overall most property owners along the boulevard will not be significantly affected.

Green says he’s relieved to finally get started on the project after several delays.

“The project started pretty much as a storm water control project,” Green said. “The more it developed, it was recognized that we were going to have to do a lot of digging to put in this storm water collection, conveyance and treatment. So we said, ‘Let’s just do the whole boulevard.'”

Green said all funding for the $4.5 million project is in place now and it includes grants from the South Florida Water Management District of $300,000 and FEMA for nearly $1 million.

“It is totally funded – the monies have been identified, they have been put into the capital improvement fund and the town’s funds have been set aside,” Green said, adding that new potable water lines are also a part of the project.

Town right-of-way easements needed to complete the project will present a problem for a few property owners along the boulevard, Green said.

“We probably have a couple that we know we’re going to definitely want and once we have other conflicts resolved and we know where we’re going to take the water, then we’ll identify what those other easements are,” Green said.

Green said reclaiming town right-of-ways from single family homes that have used the land won’t be a major problem for property owners but some businesses may be affected more seriously.

“It’s not so difficult when you have a single family residence or the duplex that have incorporated right-of-way into their landscape or where a mailbox is – that’s easily reclaimed and it has very little impact on those people,” he said. “It’s the resorts and the condominiums that have incorporated the use of the right-of-way into their actual parking plan. They’re the ones that are going to be impacted the most.”

The Riviera Villas near Lagoon Street could lose all of the parking for the facility, Green said.

“They have absolutely no parking – none,” Green said. “The only parking they have is in the right-of-way.”

Green said he has spoken with the owners of the resort but hasn’t come up with a definite solution at this time.

“I think they’re looking for a miracle,” he said. “What we have done in our plan is incorporated about five parking spaces into their plan so they could have some parking. It wouldn’t be sufficient for parking for everybody, but what it does allow is probably folks pulling up, unloading their suitcases and they could keep a shuttle vehicle there. We have offered to provide them, at a reasonable rate, parking spaces under the Sky Bridge. And it’s not that far of a walk.”

Green said the Riviera property will be most affected by the town reclaiming right-of-way for the road project.

“The rest of the condominiums have just created parking like for their staff,” he said. “Most of them have, I believe, sufficient parking for their needs and they just incorporated it because the sidewalk is there and they said, ‘Well, let’s just take that space as well.’ And some have done some extensive landscaping as well and they’re signs, which have not been replaced by the sign ordinance, may be located in the right-of-way when, in fact, they shouldn’t be.”

Green said all affected property owners would be notified in the coming weeks as to how the project would affect their properties.

“This should not be a secret to anybody – we’ve been talking about this for so long,” he said. “But we’ll have to send out letters and let them know when the project is beginning and advise them that they need to make arrangements to remove whatever they have in the right-of-way.”

Green said he would like to see the project begin sometime in April of 2008 and said it would take approximately 18 months to complete.