By Dominick Tao, Times Staff Writer
Friday, September 3, 2010
Pinellas County utilities failed to notify Largo officials in advance about a major construction project along Belcher Road that is expected to snarl traffic for 14 months and is already affecting businesses along the route.
For Largo, the lack of notification before county work crews began tearing up asphalt along a 3.5-mile stretch of road to replace a defective water main meant the city had less time to prepare for traffic and see if its own wastewater lines would be impacted.
"We never received any notification of what was going on," said assistant city engineer Robert Siler. "Usually they give us construction plans just to see if there is any conflict with our sewer and their water. We never received any."
Siler said the absence of engineering plans on file with his department could be problematic if a problem did arise and the city had to move in to repair its utilities.
"It would have been nice knowing in advance, yes," he said.
Pinellas county utilities manager Paul Giuliani said he has since spoken with the city about the issue.
For businesses along the major north-south corridor through Largo, the traffic and construction clutter has also had an effect.
Alan Holmes, operations manager of Dental Walk-in Clinic of Pinellas, said since access and sign visibility has been reduced to his office along Belcher, he worries that patients will have a hard time finding the office in an emergency since the county did not provide business-specific access signs.
"We have emergency trauma patients. When they're driving around in trauma, they don't need to freak out about where they need to turn," Holmes said.
Unlike other county projects where signs specific to businesses sidelined by construction have been provided, Giuliani said generic "business access" signs have been put to use instead along the route.
"We went with the business access signs. Part of it is because of the situation of having strip centers there," he said, where it would be difficult to put every business in a shopping center on the small signs.
Holmes said he is working with the county to pay for his own business-specific sign at 1030 Belcher Road South, which the county would install.
While proprietors of other establishments are worried about the lost business from motorists choosing alternate routes away from Belcher, others are taking a deep breath, confident the construction will end soon enough.
"It's going to hinder us a little bit," said barber George Pierson of Pete's New York Barber and Hair at 1608 Belcher Road S. "But they have to do this. It's something that will get finished and will move on."
The barber shop has been in business for the past 35 years, Pierson said, and his regular customers won't let a little traffic keep them away. "They know how to get in," he said.
Dominick Tao can be reached at (727) 580-2951 or dtao@sptimes.com