After decades of planning and some false starts, the first leg of the Congress Avenue extension at Northlake Boulevard is expected to open this month.
But it’s a road to nowhere.
The second half of the extension, completing the link of Congress to Alternate A1A, has not yet begun.
As a result, Congress will penetrate only as far as Avocado Drive, a narrow residential street. Motorists can find their way north on existing residential streets Park Lane or Hi Drive to connect to Richard Road, cross the Florida East Coast Railway tracks and reach Alternate A1A.
But county officials are still buying land to complete Phase 2 of the three-lane Congress extension, which begins across Northlake Boulevard from Target.
READ MORE: Palm Beach County community braces for traffic onslaught from railway work
The first half of Congress also complements developer Kolter Group’s plan to build a 432-unit apartment complex on the former Hilltop Gardens mobile home site. Kolter is seeking development approval from Palm Beach Gardens for the homes and 3 acres of commercial space.
The apartments would be built north of Northlake and west of Congress. Kolter is under contract to buy the property from Ormond Beach-based Gardens Business Center, which donated 2.1 acres of the 23-acre site to the county for the Congress extension.
Congress runs for about 30 miles from Yamato Road in Boca Raton to Northlake, with just one interruption where it joins Australian Avenue and turns west on Belvedere Road to get around Palm Beach International Airport.
Road costs $14 million
The $2.5 million construction of the first half of the road, begun in March, is expected to be completed on Dec. 19.
It calls for installing storm drains and building three lanes, including a center turn lane, curbs and gutters, sidewalks and a roundabout.
Construction of Phase 2, which has to extend Congress to Richard Road, cross the railroad tracks and line up with an existing traffic signal at Alternate A1A, is expected to cost $5 million.
While the plans call for three lanes, the railroad crossing could be limited to two lanes, county officials said, because the county has not yet gotten an FEC permit for three lanes to cross the railroad tracks.
At the intersection with Alternate A1A, the road will have three lanes: one eastbound left-turn lane, a combined eastbound right-turn lane and through lane and a westbound through lane.
With $1.35 million in design costs and $5 million for land in Phase 2, the total project is expected to cost $14 million.
Long-gone Hilltop and Hi Acres mobile home parks
It’s been a long time coming.
The county began planning the extension in the 1990s. County commissioners voted in 2012 to approve buyouts of 22 homes in the Hi Acres Mobile Home Park, built in the 1970s but now empty.
Property records show the former mobile home park remains in the ownership of Hi Acres Land Trust.
The neighboring mobile home park, Hilltop, had been gone since 2007, when the property’s owner evicted mobile home tenants.
The completion of Phase 1 comes seven years after county commissioners prodded staff to move more quickly to buy the land needed for the roadway. At the request of the developers seeking to buy Hilltop in 2018, commissioners approved a new road alignment the developers preferred.
But commissioners urged staff to move quickly on lining up the land. While the developer wanted a year to turn over the necessary right of way, Commissioner Hal Valeche urged it be done in eight months.
“I’d rather keep the pressure on now to get this done quickly,” he said.
The road is designed to relieve congestion at Northlake and Alternate A1A, which routinely backs up on Northlake in both directions, by giving drivers a north-south alternative.
While the alignment has not changed since 2018, the buyers have, with Kolter presenting plans for apartments to Palm Beach Gardens in July.
Meanwhile, the county has filed eminent domain lawsuits to secure the path for Phase 2, with one suit over slivers of land along Richard Road scheduled for a key hearing in January.
Editor’s note: This story was amended after publication to remove a name associated with the Hi Acres Land Trust.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
