The 10-year effort to bury overhead utility lines in Palm Beach is moving “extremely well,” with the $128 million project still on track for completion in 2027.
During a July 8 update to the Town Council on the town-wide undergrounding project, Town Engineer Patricia Strayer said all 15 construction zones are either complete or funded for construction, with pole removal, drilling, and manhole work continuing in several phases.
From South Ocean Boulevard and South County Road to the alleyway south of Worth Avenue, four poles are left to be pulled, Strayer said.
In the area from Country Club Road to Southland Road, crews are making “huge progress” on pole removal, with four poles also remaining to be pulled, she said.
From Peruvian Avenue to Royal Palm Way, Strayer noted, 4 to 6 weeks of manhole work remain before the project’s conversions can be finalized.
Florida Power & Light has committed to multiple crews for pole removal in two southern sections to make up for lost time due to the manhole work delays, she added.
There, “things are moving extremely well right now,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of holdups on manhole work, and it looks like the manhole work — fingers crossed — will be done by the middle of August, and you’ll start seeing poles removed. The thing we need to do is pray for no storms for a number of reasons, but for me, especially, so the poles can come down.”
Additionally, Strayer said, the town hopes to begin pole removal from Chateaux Drive and Kawama Lane to the south side of Plantation Road — while construction work has started on the phase that runs from Royal Poinciana Way north to Everglade Avenue.
“We’re drilling now,” Strayer said. “So fingers crossed we’ll be done [there] not long after January 2027.”
Here’s the current status of each phase in the undergrounding project, according to town documents:
Mayor Danielle Moore said she was happy with how the undergrounding effort was progressing, pointing to areas such as South County Road near The Colony Hotel where poles have come down.
“I drive all over town all the time, and I’ve seen that they had taken out a couple of poles,” she said. “But when I saw every pole gone, it’s spectacular — a thing of beauty. And I think, for new people coming on the island who never knew what it looked like before, they will only see how great it looks.”
Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach’s $128M undergrounding project remains on track for 2027 completion
Reporting by Jodie Wagner, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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