City may seek control of Lake and Lucerne avenues
Lake Worth Beach’s two main downtown drags are owned by the Florida Department of Transportation, which balked at the city’s previous transfer request 10 years ago
LAKE WORTH BEACH officials have revived discussions with the Florida Department of Transportation about the city taking control of Lake and Lucerne avenues from A Street to Golfview Road.
“It doesn’t make sense to me that the two main streets in our downtown we don’t own,’’ said Commissioner Sarah Malega, who broached the topic last month.
By owning the roughly mile-long sections of the avenues, the city would no longer have to pay the state thousands of dollars in permitting fees to block the roads for parades and events.
But Lake Worth Beach would be responsible for repairing them, adding to a local street maintenance inventory the city has struggled to keep pace with.
Vice Mayor Mimi May wondered if the city could afford to take over the roads, especially if voters in November raise the homestead exemption, wiping away millions in property tax revenue.
“That will be part of the conversation,’’ said Public Work Director Jamie Brown, who reached out to state officials earlier this month about starting a new round of transfer negotiations.
“We’d have to take over stormwater underneath the roads. It’s something we need to discuss,’’ he said.
In 2016, ownership transfer talks broke off when the FDOT balked at Lake Worth’s request for the state to make more than $3 million in pavement repairs before handing the streets over.
About eight years later, Lake and Lucerne were remilled and improved as part of a $5.4 million state resurfacing project.
Malega said she understands that some city staff might not be in favor of the transfer. But she said the city could soon be in position to “create a good fiscal policy for maintenance of those two roads.’’
The city is working on a potential mobility fee, a one-time charge for new or expanding developments designed to offset their traffic impacts. And there has been talk of a paid parking program downtown in coming years.
“This is a time where the city should strike while it’s hot,’’ Malega said, noting that two potential downtown economic drivers, the Gulfstream Hotel renovation and the Wiener Museum of Decorative Arts development, are coming along.
She said the city can also consider taking over a slightly shorter stretch of the two avenues, from Dixie Highway east to the west end of the Intracoastal Waterway bridge.
Former City Commissioner Andy Amoroso, who spearheaded the previous road transfer talks, welcomed the new negotiations.
“We were at the table with DOT and the only hold up was: let them do the work that we don’t have to pay for,’’ he said. “The last thing I wanted to do was take over roads that the taxpayers had to pay to restore. Now, our roads have been done, so it’s a better time.’’
Amoroso, owner of The Tacky Tourist gift shop on Lake Avenue, said he’d like to see the city host downtown street events that help local businesses.
“If we are taking (Lake and Lucerne) back, then let’s bring back events that actually benefit merchants and the people of the city,’’ he said.
The City of Lake Worth would do better to fix the streets that are already under its wings. I live on pot hole littered S. East Coast Street. Would be nice to have a fix here ... It seems to me the city spends a lot of time talking about this or that project but the road to project completion is tortuous.
The city should. Frankly we should control the portions of Dixie going through our town as well. It's so tiring waiting on the state to approve anything the community wants to do on on our mainstreets.