Boca, neighbors agree on new design for NW 12th Avenue

Published July 4th, 2008

By Dale M. King
CITY EDITOR

The proposed expansion of NW 12th Avenue in Boca Raton has been on the table for some time.

And while city officials and neighbors agreed that something needed to be done to improve the road that connects Palmetto Park Road to Boca Raton Community Hospital, it took a while to come up with a design that worked for both sides.

That plateau has been reached, according to Assistant City Manager Mike Woika.

“The design is going forward,” Woika told the Boca Raton News. 

He said the City Council has given engineers the green light to design improvements for the road, which, according to city officials, has long been over capacity.

The design that got the kudos from both sides is a four-land road with no median, said Woika.  It will not infringe on sidewalks and property lines.

Under a previous proposal, the current two-lane road would have been expanded in two phases to four lanes with a median and a widened sidewalk. But that plan drew opposition from residents. They stewed a bit about the sidewalk being so close to the property lines, and were not fond of the median either.

In the new plan, which will be done in a single phase, the media is gone, and, in its place, is a swale between the roadway and the sidewalk.

The new design calls for a 14-foot swale and a 5-foot sidewalk. Woika said improvements will be made to the intersection of
NW 8th Street and 12th Avenue – in front of Boca Raton Middle School.

Officials said construction is expected to begin in June of 2009. The price tag is just under $5 million.