Central Polk Parkway - Update

[edwaleni]

The piles are finally being driven at Winter Lake Road where the road will cross.

They already have the pylons up at the other end in Bartow.

[edwaleni]

Bridge pilings for the crossover at Thornhill Road.

[edwaleni]

https://www.theledger.com/story/news/local/2025/04/17/public-meetings-planned-for-toll-road-extension-in-east-polk-county/83114271007/

Meetings planned April 21-22 for north section of toll road extension in East Polk County

Per the Lakeland Ledger:



Florida's Turnpike Enterprise will hold a pair of public meetings April 21 and 22 to discuss plans for the Central Polk Parkway East section from U.S. 17-92 to the future Poinciana Connector (State Road 538) in Polk County.

A virtual public information meeting will be held April 21 at 6 p.m. An in-person open house will take place April 22 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Tom Fellows Community Center, 207 North Blvd. W., in Davenport.

Florida's Turnpike Enterprise, a division of the Florida Department of Transportation, plans to construction an extension of the toll road from U.S. 17-92, south of the Power Line Road extension, to the future Poinciana Connector. The meetings will address the Project Development and Environment study for the highway.

The Florida Department of Transportation's possible routes for a eastern extension of the Central Polk Parkway. This portion of the map shows the area from south of Haines City to its various proposed connections to Interstate 4.
Participants attending the April 21 virtual meeting may join in listen-only mode by calling 415-930-5321 and entering access code 161-413-255 when prompted.

Participants may register online at the project website, www.CentralPolkParkwayEast.com.

Residents wishing to submit public comments or questions may do so whether attending virtually or at the in-person location. Those who are unable to participate in the meeting may submit comments by contacting the Project Manager, Jazlyn Heywood, at 407-264-3298 or Jazlyn.Heywood@dot.state.fl.us.

All comments received on or before May 2 will be included in the records for the Alternatives Public Information Meeting.

Florida's Turnpike Enterprise has previously held meetings for the planning of another section of the Central Polk Parkway East, extending from S.R. 60 to U.S. 17-92.

[roadman65]

Saw phase one on Winter Lake Road near Winter Haven.  The piles are driven for the overpass that will carry it over Winter Lake Road just West of Thornhill Road.

[edwaleni]

The sat view of the new construction from the Polk Parkway (FL-570) to Bartow (US-17).

[The Ghostbuster]

No such update exists on Google Maps yet.

[edwaleni]

No such update exists on Google Maps yet.

Sentinel-2 L1C data from 4/27/25

Copernicus Sentinel is a supplier to Google Maps, and it is supplied by an open API, it just seems that Google is slow on the batch load.

[edwaleni]

Latest routes for East Polk County toll road shift miles to the north, still cut family farms

By: Gary White @ Lakeland Ledger

https://www.theledger.com/story/news/local/2025/05/06/proposed-routes-for-east-polk-county-toll-road-shift-miles-to-north/83454033007/


The proposed routes for a toll road in eastern Polk County have shifted north.

Florida's Turnpike Enterprise has narrowed the corridors under consideration for the Central Polk Parkway East from four to two, and both of them terminate at U.S. 27 in Lake Wales rather than at State Road 60, as originally proposed.

The agency, a component of the Florida Department of Transportation, revealed the new corridors May 5 during a virtual meeting. A public open house is scheduled for May 7 from 4:40 to 7:30 p.m. at Tom Fellows Community Center, 207 North Blvd. W., Davenport.

At meetings in January, Florida's Turnpike Enterprise disclosed four potential routes for the highway, running from SR 60 west of Lake Wales to U.S. 17-92 near Davenport. Those routes, labeled A, B, C and D, have now been scrapped in favor of two corridors designated E and F.

The two new paths originate at different locations on U.S. 27. Corridor E begins just south of the Eagle Ridge Mall, and Corridor F begins about four miles to the north, roughly midway between Cypress Gardens Boulevard and Dundee Road.

Corridor E runs for 21.1 miles and Corridor F for 17.3 miles.

The Department of Transportation has been considering plans to extend the Polk Parkway since at least 2008. That toll road, completed in 1998, covers 24 miles, from Interstate 4 just east of County Line Road, looping south of Lakeland to connect again to I-4 near Florida Polytechnic University.

FDOT approved a corridor in 2011 that started on SR 60 and traveled north before crossing U.S. 27 near the Eagle Ridge Mall. After the Central Polk Parkway East project was transferred to Florida's Turnpike Enterprise in 2017, the agency determined that newly built and approved developments along the original path made the route no longer feasible.

The Turnpike Enterprise launched an alternative corridor evaluation to find new routes. The agency says that the highway is needed to relieve congestion on roads in northeast Polk County, particularly U.S. 27.

The alternative corridor evaluation is the first of five phases in designing and building what the agency describes as a tolled, limited-access highway. The highway corridors would be 500 feet wide, allowing for two lanes in each direction and buffer areas.

Changes benefit Bok Tower

After starting at U.S. 27, Corridor E curves north and then east to cross SR 17 (Scenic Highway) just north of Lake Mabel.



Corridor E goes within a half mile of the northeast shore of Lake Pierce, crossing Canal Road and running north before slanting to the northwest. Corridors E and F are identical in their northern sections from Kokomo Road (County Road 546), just east of the town of Lake Hamilton, to the terminus at U.S. 17-92.

Corridor F crosses SR 17 near Lake Mabel Loop Road and curves north to merge with Corridor E at Kokomo Road, west of Grenelefe.

The four potential corridors revealed in January would have had much more of an impact on Lake Wales. Two of the routes would have run east from U.S. 27 just north of Mountain Lake Estates and within about a half mile of Bok Tower Gardens before curving to the north.

Lake Wales city commissioners expressed objections to those proposed routes at a meeting in February. Commissioners considered a resolution stating opposition before deciding to delay action.

Planners from the Turnpike Enterprise met in February with Lake Wales officials and lawyers for developers, Communications Manager Yasir Mercado told The Ledger. The project team has also met with officials from other towns and cities and from Polk County, along with representatives from the Polk County Transportation Planning Organization, Bok Tower Gardens and Cassidy Land Development.

After the release of the four initial corridors in January, David Price, president of Bok Tower Gardens, said the easternmost paths could bring noise and light pollution to the 250-acre sanctuary and alter views from the top of Iron Mountain.

Price expressed relief after watching the May 5 virtual meeting.

"We were pleased with them shifting the road," Price said. "They still have to do the PD&E (project development and environment review), and I think as they go through that, there's still a no-build option. And I know some folks are talking about a no build option."

Price also expressed relief that the revised routes will spare an undeveloped swath north of Bok Tower Gardens, the Ridge to River wildlife corridor.

While the new corridors do not connect to SR 60, project manager Jazlyn Heywood said during the May 5 meeting that a section linking that road to U.S. 27 "may be the subject of future evaluation."

Nursery owners seek revisions

From Kokomo Road north, corridors E and F run just east of Bice Grove Road and cross the eastern section of Haines City, skirting the western edge of Lake Marion Creek Wildlife Management Area. Crossing Adair Road, the corridors run just east of the Sand and Silica Mine before curving northwest to connect with U.S. 17-92 just north of Ernie Caldwell Boulevard.



The northern route, which duplicates portions of the earlier Corridors C and D, would bisect property east of Haines City owned since the 1980s by Bill and Nancy Bissett. The couple operate The Natives, a plant nursery, along with their grown children, Paul Bissett and Sarah Kiefer.

The combined E-F Corridor would separate parts of the nursery on the 36-acre property, Nancy Bissett said. Family members met with representatives from the Turnpike Enterprise the week before the May 5 meeting in hopes of persuading planners to adjust the corridors.

"They were very open to ideas that we had of different options," Kiefer said May 6.

"I think putting it a bit west, so it doesn't go right through our properties and divide our business," Nancy Bissett added.

The proposed routes would also cut through the 300-acre property of David and Sharon Garrett on Carl Boozer Road east of Haines City.

"I understand that they're equally as frustrated and distraught as we are," Nancy Bissett said. "It seems that they (highway planners) are avoiding the area that presently does not have any homes, because they figure in the future it will, those are the plans. And so for that reason, they want to go through areas where we and others have lived for decades."

Conservation easements encompass the Bissetts' property, which Nancy said contains examples of various Florida ecosystems. Asked about conservation easements during the virtual meeting, Heywood said potential impacts to easements would be evaluated during the PD&E study.

"We'll take the concerns mentioned into consideration as we refine Corridors E and F and continue to coordinate with The Natives nursery," Heywood said during the session.

No money yet for construction

Florida's Turnpike Enterprise plans to hold a public meeting in the fourth quarter of 2025 to present the selected corridor, Heywood said. Further public meetings will be held during the PD&E study, with a final route revealed by August 2027.

Corridor E would affect 136 to 138 residential properties, according to the Turnpike Enterprise, while Corridor F would affect 91 to 93. Corridor E would affect 11 commercial parcels, compared with two for Corridor F.

Corridor E would impact 242 acres of wetlands, 394 acres of floodplains and 2,535 acres of habitat for threatened and endangered species, the agency said. For Corridor F, the figures are 126 to 131 acres of wetlands, 286 to 293 acres of floodplains and 1,785 to 1,788 acres of crucial habitat.

The project is partially funded for design in 2028, and the earliest that land acquisition for right-of-way would begin is 2029, Heywood said. An address locator can be found on the website for the project: www.centralpolkparkwayeast.com.

There is no current funding designated for construction. The project will be funded through toll and concession revenues from Turnpike Enterprise highways, said Imran Ghani, a consultant from the firm Osiris 9. The agency has not estimated a total cost.

Florida's Turnpike Enterprise allowed residents to submit questions before the May 5 meeting, and Heywood read 38 of them, with Ghani providing most of the answers.

The Turnpike Enterprise will provide written responses to all the comments it received, Heywood said.

[edwaleni]

Video recap of recent public hearing on Florida Turnpike - Polk Parkway East

[NJRoadfan]

...and where is it going north of US-17-92? Not much open space left in that area.

[roadman65]

...and where is it going north of US-17-92? Not much open space left in that area.

It's to connect to the SR 538 extension around Loughman whenever that gets done.

[ElishaGOtis]

...and where is it going north of US-17-92? Not much open space left in that area.

It's to connect to the SR 538 extension around Loughman whenever that gets done.

Kinda surprised they didn't provide an alternative along Cypress Pkwy to directly connect with the existing south end of 538.

[edwaleni]

One thing for sure Florida Turnpike is going to go all out to avoid the Lake Marion Wildlife Area/Reedy Creek Swamp.

When OCX designed the Poinciana Parkway, the FEPA required OCX to build a bridge over the entire swamp instead of periodic culverts and fill between Kinney-Harmon Road in Davenport, and what used to be Bourne Road in Poinciana. It cost OCX a great deal of money and its probably why the Poinciana Connector hasn't been built up to the FL-429/I-4 ramps yet. OCX would have do something similar and it wouldnt be cheap. Probably need more people living in Poinciana first so they can extract an adequate amount of tolls.