Golden Gate Parkway

It wasn't that long ago that Golden Gate Parkway, the six-mile road that connects working-class Golden Gate with Coastland Mall, Tamiami Trail and coastal amenities, was bucolic, even quaint.

Just 10 years ago, it held Ray and Faye's Nostalgia Cafe, where on special nights, Ray would impersonate Elvis while Faye served up meatloaf and scalloped potatoes from large tin-foil trays.

The folks at the Wyndemere development enjoy upscale homes inside a well-landscaped gate, but everyone else secretly wonders why they would live so far out of town. Social service agencies, non-mainstream churches and residential bargain hunters exploit the cheap land there. There are no pesky tourists and relatively few seasonal residents. There are no gas stations, no convenience stores and no hotels. And no access to Interstate 75, the primary corridor for the Gulf Coast, from Georgia to the southernmost civilized parts of Florida.

I-75's nearest on/off ramps are Pine Ridge Road to the north and Davis Boulevard to the south. Each of those exits is littered with hotels, low-budget chain restaurants and dozens of gas pumps. They are typical of interstate fare everywhere.

Is the brouhaha of those exits the inevitable destiny of the now quiet Golden Gate Parkway? Are working-class commuters and bus stop school kids about to be pushed aside by road-weary long distance drivers? Can property owners bank on a 10-fold appreciation when their Golden Gate homes are replaced by golden-arched fast food?

Maybe yes ... and maybe no.

Crystal Balling

"The Feds are in the driver's seat," reports Gavin Jones, transportation planner for Collier County's Metropolitan Planning Organization. "They are the ones who govern access to the interstate system."

But the federal process is driven by local priorities. Five years ago, the local MPO identified the Golden Gate Parkway interchange as the top priority in its road building program. For each of the subsequent years, it has recommended the interchange to Florida's Department of Transportation.

Now, according to FDOT spokesperson Debbie Tower, the funding has been approved for the first of four phases of development and is awaiting approval from the Federal Highway Administration.

The Highway Administration is loyal to its mission to facilitate long distance travel. Jones explains that the expense of new interstate exchanges cannot be justified simply as alternative local arterial roadways. "That's not the intention," he says. "They have to prove the level of service to the long-distance travelers is so bad, and that the new interchange will improve the level of service," he says. "In essence, that it will correct the level of service deficiency at another interchange."

The two challenges in this situation are to prove that the Pine Ridge and C.R. 951 interchanges are overburdened, and that a new interchange at Golden Gate Parkway will relieve the excess demand.

Federal approval is expected within three months, and Jones is confident. "Everyone is marching along with the understanding that this will come to pass," he says.

Construction could start as early as 2004.

How to Build a Road

The proposed interchange at Golden Gate Parkway and Interstate 75 is following a long-proven process. According to Debbie Tower, spokesperson for Florida's Department of Transportation, it all begins with a county's metropolitan planning organization, a board of elected officials, county employees and interested citizens appointed by the county commission.

This board sets the priorities for new road construction, often five of more years into the future. Its recommendations are theoretically insulated from transient political objections by requiring each proposed roadway project to appear on several successive years' lists of priorities before the FDOT takes it seriously.

After the MPO has convinced the FDOT that a proposed roadway is important enough to the community to build, the FDOT's own process begins.There are four phases of production -- each takes about two years. For work involving interstate highways, Tower emphasizes that until federal approval is granted, "we don't have an interchange."

FDOT production phases include:

1. Production Development and Environment Study, or PD&E, which looks at environmental, economic, social and historic impacts on the community. Traffic numbers and other data are collected, and a conceptual design is made. Towards the end of the PD&E phase, the FDOT holds hearings and public workshops to assure its collected data are consistent with the public's wishes.

2. Design, in which the project's literal design is completed. This phase allows the FDOT to determine the project's right-of-way and the land that needs to be acquired to complete it.

3. Right-Of-Way Acquisition, in which the people and companies that own property in the right-of-way are notified of their rights under the law, and the property is acquired by the state.

4. Actual Construction, which does not mean that building will begin, but that the job is publicized so that roadbuilding companies can bid. Actual "actual construction" may begin as late as the end of the fiscal year after the Actual Construction phase.

Time For A Commercial Break?

What will the new interchange look like? There is a wide range of opinion.

"The best example is Exit 16, Pine Ridge Road," says Warren Segraves, CCIM, Realtor and vice president of John R. Wood Realty. "I think we will see a duplicate of Pine Ridge Road." He hesitates to add a caveat, "If the county has provided for commercial designation."

David Weeks is the Senior Planner in Collier County's Comprehensive Planning Section. "There are no plans to make any changes to the comprehensive plan or to the zoning," he says. The current zoning, he explains, is E-estates, which generally means single-family homes are permitted on 2-1/4 acre lots, with some churches, day care centers and the like. It does not permit hotels, fast food or gas stations.

But zoning can change. And it's this possibility that has Segraves pushing his calculator. "Now?" he asks rhetorically, "The Golden Gate Parkway land now?" Segraves thumbs through the MLS. "Here's one listed on Golden Gate for $25,000 for 1.2 acres.

"On Pine Ridge, now, the asking price is about $6.50 a square foot, up to $11 rezoned. At $6.50 a foot," he calculates, "that's $280,00 an acre, and $480,000 an acre at $11. There is definitely going to be some appreciation of land prices due to re-zoning."

Certainly, some are beginning to capitalize on the likelihood of a Golden Gate interchange already. Blockbuster billionaire H. Wayne Huizenga announced last month the construction of a hotel, golf course and residential complex at the corner of Airport-Pulling Road and Golden Gate Parkway, just three miles coastward of the proposed interchange.

Other gentrification is occurrin