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Congress Ave. Red Hot
Widening project nears completion as developments spring up

By Darrell Hoffheinz, ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR

Motorists who travel Congress Avenue in Delray Beach and Boca Raton should get ready to merge over the next few weeks, as construction crews begin paving a 3.3-mile stitch of the roadway between Linton Boulevard and Yamato Road. Starting Monday, daytime crews will periodically reduce the number of lanes available to drivers to one to complete the paving, which will take three to four weeks, said Carl Miller, director of construction coordination for Palm Beach County.

The work is the tail end of a year-long, $2-milllon project to widen the four-lane roadway to six lanes. The work is expected to be completed next month. The roadwork has also coincided with a variety of major construction projects in the works along Congress Avenue, an industrial-and-office park corridor developed largely by Arvida Corp. between Yamato and Clint Moore roads.

Today, however, the area north of Clint Moore is red-hot with development. Among the new projects going up there are CarrAmerica's massive Peninsula Corporate Center at the Interstate 95/Congress Avenue interchange; IBM's regional headquarters at the Beacon Square at Boca Raton; and Danburg Management Corp.'s new office/technology park:-the Preserve at 7700 Congress. "Suddenly, you have a half-million square feet of office space right here," said Ken Silberling, vice president of leasing for Danburg Management Corp, which also owns One Boca Commerce Center. "This corridor has finally arrived."

Antl the nearly completed road-widcning project for Congress Avenue, part of the county's five-year road plan, will both encourage development and accommodate burgeoning traffic, officials say. "It's great for that area - especially with the new developments.'' said Tonya McConnell, a manager for the county's five-year road program.

Costco raises eyebrows
Some of that development has sparked controversy, however. including Costco's plans for a clew 150,000 square-foot warehouse store on 30 acres of property just north of Clint Moore Road. The plan would require a variance from the county, which could be considered by planning officials within the next several weeks. The proposal has drawn sharp criticism from residents of the Boca Country Club development across the street. County Commissioner Mary McCarty and the Boca Raton Resort and Club, which owns the country club. But Costco views the property it owns as prime land with easy access to 1-95 - especially rare in increasingly built-out South County.

The Congress Avenue interchange was built a decade ago at the urging of developer William "Bill" Knight of Knight Energy, a major property owner along Congress Avenue, The Knight Realty Group, in fact, is a "co-broker" in the Peninsula Corporate Center, the new home of major Boca Raton employer NCCI and a soon-to-be-built hotel, among other projects.

Built as part of the area's comprehensive development plan, the I-95 interchange was for years underused and once referred to in print by Boca Raton magazine Editor Marie Speed as an "exit to nowhere" - a label that today might seem a misnomer, considering all of the construction crews working nearby. "It's now an exit to everywhere," said Speed, whose offices are on Congress Avenue.

Interchange promotes growth
"It was always the intent of Bill Knight to see that property develop. He struggled many years," said Mike Arts, president of the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce. "But now his vision is coming to fruition. The area has flourished, particularly at the Congress interchange."

And although it took years, Arts said, the interchange has undoubtedly sparked interest in the northern part of the Congress corridor. Arts added that the long-planned widening of the avenue comes at a good time.

"There's a need to move that traffic, and there is property there where the owners' have development rights," Arts said. "As you anticipate development, you have to have the infrastructure in place. That's very important."

The I-95 interchange and the widening project also have had an effect on Delray Beach, where corporate development along Congress Avenue was more piecemeal than in Boca Raton, said Bill Wood of the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce. "Any time you make things a little easier to access, that's going to benefit everybody," Wood said. "The development - particularly at the interchange - certainly has an effect on us here. We may not get the tax benefits, but we certainly get the employment benefits and other residuals from that development - it provides better access for our employers on Congress. These are things where it's hard to draw community lines."

Justification for interchange
State transportation officials view the I-95 interchange as a project ahead of its time and an example of solid planning, said Barbara Kelleher, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Transportation. "The justification for the interchange was [projected] growth," said Kelleher. "It was also intended to relieve traffic on the exchanges north and south of it, and it's done that. Obviously, this was a success story." Last week, the county entered negotiations to finalize the contract to acquire the last piece of right-of-way for the Congress Avenue widening project from One Boca Commerce Center.

The property will allow two right-turn lanes to be built on northbound Congress Avenue at the I-95 interchange, near the Marriott Residence Inn that only a few years ago was one of only a handful of developments in the area. "What used to be an exit into Florida scrub land is now an exit into an exploding office park," said Speed of Boca Raton magazine "And when I think of all the traffic that's coming; I'm a little scared by it all."