PANAMA CITY BEACH — A highway that officials say will be the start of an alternative corridor to traveling Back Beach Road is a step closer to reality.
The Panama City Beach City Council, on the prodding of County Commissioner Mike Thomas, late Thursday night voted to enter into an interlocal agreement that will allow the St. Joe Co. to start engineering work for the new “Loop Road.”
“I’m going to bring back an agreement between the St. Joe Co. and Panama City Beach,” City Manager Mario Gisbert said after the council meeting. “We’ve pretty much gone through all the legal terms and everything. We’re going to add the survey to that component. And then it will allow the St. Joe Co. to start the engineering for the project.”
The Loop Road would curve for about a 1.5-mile stretch in a northwesterly direction from the end of North Pier Park Drive up to State 79. North Pier Park Drive extends from Back Beach Road and dead ends just north of Palmetto Trace’s western entrance. When completed, the new road extension would allow drivers leaving Pier Park to drive to State 79 without traveling the congested segment of Back Beach Road.
Gisbert said the agreement being drafted is very specific to just the Loop Road segment from State 79 to North Pier Park.
“But we may be able to add some language in this that we will continue to work to get this all the way to Nautilus (Street),” Gisbert said. “I can tell you (St. Joe officials) are already working on the other leg to Nautilus. It’s just not in the agreement at this time.”
The city would fund the $2.6 million to develop a two-lane Loop Road, and the property owner, the St. Joe Co., would convey land for it and provide engineering work and mitigation services. The 150-foot swath would be enough land to four-lane the road in the future.
Gisbert told the council that that city and St. Joe Co. officials are evaluating a connection road linking the Colony Club subdivision to Nautilus Street as part of the overall project. This could mean Colony Club residents would have the option of avoiding driving into the median opening on Back Beach Road that is the only way in and out of the community. Residents would be able to travel straight up to U.S. 79 without ever having to turn onto Back Beach Road. Residents could also travel up to Nautilus Street and turn onto Back Beach Road at the traffic light.
Colony Club audience Phil Chester, who said he initially had reservations about the Loop Road project, said he would be elated if the overall project comes to fruition.
“That would be awesome,” he said Friday.
There could be a secondary major benefit to the new Loop Road. A portion of the new road would be built over the dirt Power Line Road, and paving that road could prod the state to move ahead with an expansion of a longer segment of a road — informally called Back Back Beach Road — that the Florida Department of Transportation supports; it is expected in the future to be an alternative east-west corridor to Back Beach Road.
At the end of the meeting during public comment, Thomas, who lives on Front Beach Road, urged the council to get the ball rolling on the Loop Road project.
He pointed out that a few months ago he came before the council urging them to move ahead on the Loop Road, but that hasn’t happened.
“We have looked at this for years, not primarily the Loop Road, but this is the start of the Back Back Beach Road,” he said. “That is what I think we need to focus on more than anything else, is beginning this process.”
Thomas said everyone from Department of Transportation to St. Joe officials to city officials recognizes that “sooner or later we have to have some relief to the north of us back there.”
“We’re not going to get it until we get started,” he said. “I would ask you all to authorize the resolution that starts this bid process, that starts this construction as soon as possible. You’ve collected the money from the people there that are supposed to pay for it.”
Gisbert told the council members that since he first brought the proposed Loop Road concept to them in August, staff has meet with DOT two times and five or six meeting with St. Joe Co. officials.
“In every conversation we’ve had with DOT you can definitely tell they are excited about the concept of this because being an alternate road off of Back Beach Road,” Gisbert said.
The city has set aside $1 million in impact fees charged to new development in the Pier Park corridor for the Loop Road, and the remaining $1.6 million would come out of the city’s general fund.
Councilman Keith Curry challenged Gisbert whether the Loop Road was the best way to spend $1.6 million in general fund dollars.
He said he wants the city to get the “most bang for its buck” on road projects.
“I mean, we’ve asked for some (funding for) areas where we have people getting killed and accidents, and we’ve seen nothing from you,” Curry told Gisbert.
Curry said he could see where the $1.6 million expenditure of taxpayer money on the Loop Road is going to benefit Pier Park, where it begins.
“I can see where it’s going to benefit St. Joe,” he said. “I can see where it might benefit a new sports facility that the Tourist Development Council might want to build.”