The design work is nearly finished on the new gateway planned for Pensacola Beach at the base of the Bob Sikes Bridge, and Escambia County is moving forward with hiring a company to oversee work on the project.
The board is being asked to approve hiring engineering and management firm Mott MacDonald Florida at a cost of $309,865 to provide Construction Engineering and Inspection (CEI) Services for the Pensacola Beach Gateway Improvements Project.
The company’s role will be to assist the county in overseeing engineering plans and work on the project, which will include demolishing the old toll booth and building a new toll gantry, an overhead, bridge-like structure with a platform to support the new toll-by-plate equipment and CCTV cameras.
Escambia County District 4 Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger, who represents Pensacola Beach, said the new tolling equipment is needed because the current equipment is outdated and has stopped working altogether for one lane of traffic moving through the booth.
“I’m just excited to get the entry to the beach cleaned up and looking more appealing,” Hofberger said. “Ripping down the old toll plaza, that’ll reduce the traffic bottleneck and putting in the new tolling equipment—the tolling equipment that’s currently in the plaza is outdated. We can’t even get replacement parts. That’s why the left-hand lane doesn’t work.”
The gateway project calls for renovating a multi-purpose path, replacing the roadway where the old toll plaza is now and building the new plaza between the south end of the Bob Sikes Bridge and the north end of the groundwater storage tanks.
There will also be a new fiber optic line that will not only connect the new toll facility to the existing traffic signal on Santa Rosa Island at Via de Luna Drive and Ft. Pickens Road, but it will also connect to an upcoming fiber network on U.S. Highway 98 in Gulf Breeze.
That fiber network will be connected to Northwest Florida’s new $22.5 million Traffic Management Center, a traffic ‘nerve center’ that will help monitor and respond to congestion in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in real time.
“That was a big dollar part of this project,” Hofberger said of the new fiber network for the gateway project. “It was over a million dollars as far as the actual fiber component of the project. That was a big lift, but it’s vitally important if we’re going to ever move forward with AI and traffic control.”
Escambia County is looking into how to improve traffic flow on Pensacola Beach, which could include the possibility of building a parking garage at Casino Beach.
The design of the new Pensacola Beach Gateway Project will not include a sign as proposed earlier this year and axed due to push back from the public and a lack of funding.
Hofberger said the new toll gantry will be focused on functionality and the design work is expected to be completed by the end of September.
Once the design plans are completed, Hofberger says the county will solicit bids for the construction part of the project.
The goal is to have the old toll plaza removed and the new one in place and operational by the peak of next year’s tourist season.
Escambia’s Board of County Commissioners is scheduled to vote on the recommendation to hire Mott MacDonald Florida to supervise the project at their Sept. 4 board meeting.
Public forum begins at 4:30 p.m. and the regular meeting starts at 5:30 p.m., at 221 Palafox Place.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola Beach toll plaza to be demolished for new gateway. When work will begin.
Reporting by Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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