When FDOT is done with the Boulevard, they say it’ll be sweet, but until then…

It’s back! Just when Miamians thought it was safe to come back to Biscayne Boulevard after those dark years of intense road construction, the barriers, dust, and bulldozers have returned, this time farther south, on the hectic stretch below 36th Street.

As every commuter knows by now, we’re not talking lane closures in the middle of the night. This is a massive reconstruction project from the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), estimated to last two years, costing $16 million, and resulting in one-lane travel in each direction on one of Miami’s major arteries. It begins at the intersection where I-95 traffic pours onto (and out of) the Boulevard, and will extend down to just north of the Adrienne Arsht Center.

In a sad twist of fate, this is also the area that developers targeted not so long ago to create the engine for a new urban environment -- where gleaming condos and art centers would help populate the decrepit streets with eager crowds, whose needs would be fulfilled by a pedestrian-friendly influx of businesses. Then the real estate boom went bust, the economy went south, and the view of the Boulevard went from shiny and bright to cloudy and bleak. And then in August, the barricades went up.

“Oh, we really can’t believe how bad business has become,” says Carmen Caamano, a manager of Pronto Supermarket, which expanded into bigger digs just last year. Pronto is located on that part of the Boulevard where the first segment of reconstruction is under way (between 35th and 28th streets), complete with a concrete barrier in the middle of the thoroughfare that makes crossing the road impossible for people, cars, and chickens alike. “I think we are losing half our business.”

But let’s stand back. Contrary to what locals may believe, the FDOT project was not intended as an evil plot to destroy the Edgewater neighborhood. It is an attempt to improve it. Like so much of the nation’s transportation infrastructure, Biscayne Boulevard was long overdue for an overhaul. So in 2003, a two-part redesign was conceived: a reconstruction project from NE 15th Street to NE 35th Terrace (which began August 24, to be completed in two years); and a smaller resurfacing project from NE 36th Street to NE 38th Street (which began October 26, to be completed by February 2010).

The bulk of the work for the reconstruction project includes:

• Reconstructing the roadway.

• Replacing drainage and water-main systems.

• Reconstructing sidewalks, driveways, and curb ramps to meet Americans with Disability Act standards.

• Replacing curbs and gutters.

• Upgrading lighting, traffic, and pedestrian signs and signalization.

• Installing new landscaping and irrigation.

The contractor, American Engineering and Development, is limited to working about five or six blocks at a time, according to Maria Palacios, FDOT’s public information officer. Work began on the west side of the roadway, from north to south, and will continue on the east side of the roadway from south to north, dividing the project into six different work zones. Palacio says each zone will take about four months to complete.

During the section closures, some side streets will be open, others not. Various sidewalks and driveways will be closed. Heavy equipment and hard-hatted people will be moving around. Dust and noise will be ubiquitous. And drivers just might want to use NE 2nd Avenue to avoid the whole thing.

This is not, to put it mildly, what many business owners had envisioned for their Boulevard at this stage of the game.

Orange Grooming opened up two months ago in the 2900 block of the Boulevard, according to Mylenne Suero, just a week after she found out about the imminent construction. Had she known earlier, she would have chosen a location for her pet-grooming business in the Upper Eastside, “where they already went through this, and it is at least all over for them.” (As the BT reported in numerous stories, that four-year construction project devastated small businesses.) For Suero it’s too soon to know what toll this traffic nightmare will take, but customers have been complaining.

Farther south, where traffic is still flowing (though not for long), Alfredo Patino, chef/owner of the restaurant Bin No. 18, says he’s looking at options. He may open a back entrance, facing the rear parking lot, or put up foliage to screen the construction in the front. If the customers disappear, he might just leave, a grim scenario everyone in Edgewater wants to avoid. “I hope the city can work with us small businesses,” says Patino, who would welcome some type of financial assistance. But in a deep recession and in a city that is virtually broke, that may be wishful thinking.

Caamano of Pronto Market says she has called the city a number of times already but has received no response. She remembers that on one windy day, the dust and debris from the construction literally invaded the market. When the two lanes that are now open on Pronto’s east side of the Boulevard are eventually closed, she says, “I just don’t know what we’ll do.”

Interestingly, Biscayne Boulevard’s very origins can be traced to efforts to bolster northside development during troubling times. “The abrupt fall of the Miami boom was cushioned in the first part of 1926 by the conception of Biscayne Boulevard. Like the anesthesia which prepares our nerves for the shock of the surgeon’s knife, the creation of Biscayne Boulevard kept Miami going during the summer of 1926, despite the discovery that $50,000 lots no longer could be sold for one-tenth of that amount, or that the ‘summer tourist season’ of 1925 was nothing but a delusion,” wrote Kenneth Ballinger in his 1936 book Miami Millions

For some the deconstructed Boulevard is not a complete debacle. Those drivers who by choice or mistake get stuck in one-lane traffic behind a car turning left might discover a gem of a business that was otherwise overlooked. Says the cashier at Boulevard Liquors, who didn’t want to give his name: “They are sitting out there in traffic and see for the first time that we are here, and they go, ‘Hey, let’s get some beer!’”

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