Barricades detouring traffic at 49th Street S. and 27th Avenue in Gulfport will be up into early next month as pipes are laid to tie in to the new storm water treatment ponds being constructed next to the municipal marina.
“They started January 23 and the road will closed for about two weeks,” Public Works Director Don Sopak said Wednesday, January 25.
The project, being built at a cost of $1.78 million, includes two new storm water retention ponds to treat water that now flows untreated into Boca Ciega Bay from the 240-acre 49th Street catchment area. The initial flush – comprising the dirtiest water and about 10 percent of the total – is being diverted into new pipes built across 27th Avenue, down Upton Street and across 29th Avenue into the ponds.
The pipes along 27th Avenue and Upton Street have already been laid and the streets repaved, and excavation has begun on the retention ponds. The entire project is expected to be completed on budget in April, said Sopak.
“Everything is going on schedule,” he said of the project, which has been in the works since 2008. “No problems.”
The ponds are being built on two city-owned lots just west of the marina and will look like similar storm water treatment ponds at Wood Ibis and Tomlinson Lake parks. They will be fenced in for public safety, with a sidewalk along the marina side, and be landscaped with native plants.
