Winter Garden Village road work nearly complete

WINTER GARDEN — With new developments often come new roads, and Florida Hospital Winter Garden — scheduled to open in a few months — is no exception.

Construction teams have been hoping to complete roadwork by the start of November to avoid problems during peak shopping seasons, and all signs point to completion well before that, City Engineer Art Miller said.

“Current roadwork is associated with the Florida Hospital construction,” Miller said of work around the southern part of Daniels Road. “They have had Fowler Groves Boulevard and Sembler Way closed for the last several months. It has to do with the entrance into the hospital, which will be a roundabout. That work is scheduled to be completed Aug. 21, depending on the weather because of the rains. We’ve been pushing them to get those roads open.”

General construction work for this area began last August before some off-site work began in February or March, but roadwork has been just the last several months, with the roads closed only once that began, Miller said.

He said crews have been on track to meet the city of Winter Garden’s requirement that no roadwork occur after Nov. 1, with a current projection to beat that date by six weeks or more.

“The other part of it is on northbound Daniels Road, within what they have to do as part of the agreement to build the hospital,” he said. “They are adding and extending left-turn lanes. That work — again depending on the weather — is scheduled to be done the second week in September.”

As roadwork continues in these regards, Miller said Winter Garden crews would try to limit work to between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Funding for these projects comes from transportation and impact fees, with the hospital bearing some of the costs, Miller said.

“There’s a very extensive set of roadway improvements they’re responsible for or funding,” he said of Florida Hospital officials. “These sections they’re currently doing with their own contractor, but there are others which are future projects they’ll reimburse the city for with direct funds or reimbursements.”

In a project coordinated with the Central Florida Expressway Authority, which will be working on State Road 429 in the same area, Winter Garden teams also will improve Winter Garden-Vineland Road at its interchange with S.R. 429 by adding lanes, Miller said.

“That work is kind of a small piece of the overall plan of those improvements,” he said. “Along with that, the city is doing some improvements to Stoneybrook West Parkway westbound, which will again extend the right-turn lane on westbound Stoneybrook West Parkway that turns north on Daniels (Road).”

Miller said that work should take about half of the time as the work on State Road 429, about 90 days, starting in September around the same time as those State Road 429 enhancements. Because of the maintenance of traffic and location of construction, the Stoneybrook West Parkway work should not affect traffic, he said.

The main project is to turn Winter Garden-Vineland Road into six lanes, which will begin in January, Miller said.

“On this little bit of work we’re going to start pretty soon, it’s, in total, probably less than $250,000,” he said.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].