After more than four months of being closed to vehicular traffic, Palafox Street in downtown Pensacola appears on track to reopen within the next two weeks.
In January, the city launched a $10.7 million project to modernize the iconic street with expanded sidewalks, new landscaping and trees, brick-paved intersections, pedestrian safety features and an upgraded stormwater system. Although sidewalks and businesses on the street have remained open, the actual roadway has been closed and fenced off.
The city’s contract requires Palafox to be reopened to street traffic by July 3, but it includes incentives to encourage the street to reopen much sooner, with the contractor set to earn a 10% bonus if work on the stretch of Palafox between Garden and Main streets is completed by May 24.
The incentive appears to have worked.
“We’re still on track to meet the May 24 incentivized deadline,” Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves said during his weekly news conference May 12. “We are still working on reopening blocks ahead of schedule, but that remains contingent upon completion, with punch list items.”
In a prior news conference May 5, Reeves said the northernmost block of the construction area—between Garden and Romana streets—could potentially reopen to pedestrians a week early. But on May 12 the mayor indicated that possibility had diminished under recent weather conditions.
“There’s been lots of rain—so May 24 isn’t in jeopardy—but there was some conversation of, could we open a block a little early?” Reeves said. “We have not eliminated that completely, but my hunch right now, considering the fact that it’s May 12 and it’s May 24 completion, is we’re probably going to be more focused on getting the street holistically reopened than we would opening something a week early.”
Once the construction on Palafox Street is completed, work will branch out to surrounding side streets. Work on Romana and Intendencia Streets is to be completed by Sept. 9, and work on Government and Zarragossa streets is to be completed by Nov. 25.
Reeves said the city is still finalizing plans for what the public unveiling of the new Palafox will look like later this month.
“We will update you through this week, and certainly next week we should be bringing back plans of what that public-facing opening will look like in and around May 24,” he said.
News Journal reporter Jim Little contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: New Palafox Street on track to reopen May 24
Reporting by Kevin Robinson, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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