Get ready for the metaphorical confetti. On Monday, the Town of Longboat Key paused its regular business to perform a time-honored municipal tradition: the collective self-high-five.
The occasion? The official completion of the Country Club Shores Turn Lane Project—a massive infrastructure undertaking that successfully widened the road, shrunk the golf course, and installed concrete medians that many residents spent years begging the town not to build.
According to a glowing memo from Public Works Director Charlie Mopps to Town Manager Howard Tipton, the project has achieved “substantial completion” without a single timeline extension or cost overage. The Town Commission is set to receive a presentation detailing the triumph, marking the end of a saga that began when Barack Obama was still in the White House.
A Decade in the Making
While the asphalt is fresh, the paperwork is vintage. The project design actually began in 2016. It took nearly ten years, a partnership with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), and approximately $2.6 million to answer the age-old question: How long does it take to pour a turn lane?
The answer, apparently, is a decade.
The finished product covers 0.84 miles of Gulf of Mexico Drive, from Channel Lane to Longboat Club Road. To make room for the improvements, the project required widening the southbound pavement by 12 feet—a feat accomplished by carving a generous slice out of the adjacent golf course.
The result is a shiny new 44-foot-wide pavement section boasting two travel lanes, widened bike lanes (“paved shoulders”), and the pièce de résistance: five landscape medians.
The Medians Nobody Asked For
For years, residents in Country Club Shores argued against fixed, hard medians, preferring a more open center lane concept. But the FDOT and the Town, driven by safety data and engineering standards, proceeded anyway.
In his memo, Director Mopps highlights a concession made to the public: “With community engagement, a decision was made to reduce the size of the five medians.” This reduction, he notes, allowed for longer turn lanes for queuing vehicles, “amplifying the safety measures previously designed into the project.”
Translation: The concrete islands are still there, just slightly smaller than originally threatened.
Victories Small and Large
The presentation scheduled for Tuesday is expected to highlight several “collaborative efforts” and fiscal wins that might soothe the sting of the construction chaos.
For one, the town saved “thousands of dollars” by reducing the number of irrigation taps into the water system from five to two. Additionally, the construction team managed to avoid “adverse impacts on the community” by minimizing night work—meaning the traffic jams at least happened while the sun was shining.
Most notably, the project finished on time. The “substantial completion” date of November 14, 2025, was hit right on schedule, and a final walk-through on December 29 confirmed that the job was done.
So, while the golf course is a little narrower and the residents navigate the medians they tried to vote off the island, the Town is ready to mark the moment. The memo ends with a simple “Staff Recommendation: None, informational only.”
Please hold your applause until the end of the PowerPoint.
