Greg LeBlanc is getting out before the most expensive road construction project in Jacksonville history begins right outside his front door.

LeBlanc, the owner of Tidbits restaurant at Louisa Street and Hendricks Avenue in San Marco, has looked at plans for replacing an aging, elevated section of Interstate 95 south of the Fuller Warren Bridge and decided that he'll have to move to a new location before construction begins.

"They're going to take away all the parking on the street," LeBlanc said, "and make Louisa Street one way."

The parking spaces won't be coming back when construction ends. Without parking, he said he can't attract customers to his restaurant, which offers sandwiches, soups and salads to the lunchtime crowd.

While LeBlanc is losing his business location, Dave Eldeb might be losing his home.

Eldeb received a notice last month that said the state is considering taking his property at 2010 Southampton Road.

He will attempt to get more information on what is happening on Tuesday, when the Florida Department of Transportation unveils an updated design for replacing the interstate, which it is calling the Overland Bridge. The meeting is at the Duval County School District office on Prudential Drive starting at 4:30 p.m.

The section of I-95, one of the most heavily traveled in Jacksonville, is structurally deficient and needs to be torn down, FDOT says. Daily average traffic counts conducted by the state in 2009 have traffic ranging from 172,000 vehicles using the roadway just off the Fuller Warren Bridge to 120,000 using the road south of Hendricks Avenue.

The $224 million project is expected to disrupt traffic on I-95 from north of Palm Avenue to south of San Diego Road, over Hendricks, King and Montana avenues. Construction is scheduled to begin in late 2012 or early 2013, and conclude in the summer of 2016.

When finished, the project will pass the recently completed intersection improvements at interstates 10 and 95 as the most expensive road construction project in Jacksonville history. That project cost about $152 million in construction with a total project cost of about $200 million and took six years to complete, from 2005-2010.

About 100 parcels of land may be affected as part of the Overland Bridge project. How many of those will be homes is a mystery.

"We don't know how many homes will be taken," said James Bennett, a development engineer for the Florida Department of Transportation. "Right now it's a moving target."

Affected homes would be around Crawford Street west of I-95 and Southampton Road, where Eldeb lives, east of the interstate, Bennett said.

Eldeb, who lives in his house with his wife, son and father, is holding out hope that his might be spared.

"I don't know if they're going to be taking my house," Eldeb said, "or just part of my backyard."

The notice included an estimate of what the state believes his property is worth. Eldeb declined to say what it was, but believes his property is worth more than the estimate.

Although replacing this section of I-95 has been in the plans for a while, residents such as Eldeb are in danger of losing their homes because of a new wrinkle in the project. The state recently decided to build an access road off northbound Interstate 95 that would take traffic around the downtown area.

"Our goal was to replace a bridge," Bennett said. "But we're trying to improve access and traffic flow while doing it."

The access road would run from south of the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts to the Main Street and Acosta bridges.

Motorists who want to get off I-95 northbound and go downtown will have to get onto the access road first before reaching a downtown exit. The access road will take motorists to the two bridges, as well as a new exit on Atlantic Boulevard.

"Being able to get off at Atlantic gives you access to the roadway that doesn't exist now," Bennett said. "It will also be easier to get onto Philips Highway."

The access road will also lead to fewer lane changes that tend to cause accidents, he said.

Change in plans

The access road makes the plans significantly different than the original plan that was the subject of an April 2009 public workshop.

That plan did not include construction of a northbound access road, was expected to cost $182 million, and was scheduled for five years of construction.

Bennett said feedback at that meeting convinced the state that five years was too long.

The revised project will take 3? years to complete despite the extra work and added cost, and will move faster because it will allow all of I-95 to be torn down and rebuilt at once.

The northbound access road will be built and the southbound access road will be widened to three lanes. Traffic will then be diverted to both access roads while construction occurs.

"This allows us to do all the work [tearing down and replacing I-95] at once," Bennett said.

Notices have been mailed to about 35 property owners informing them that their property could be taken, said state right of way coordinator Joe Jordan. More notices will be sent out when the state has a better idea of how the project will work, he said.

The state will hold the public meeting Tuesday and then a second public meeting in January before firming up its plans on how it will go forward, Bennett said. It will cost about $57 million to purchase the land necessary for the project.

Digging in and getting out

LeBlanc was one of the people who expressed concern at the April meeting. He recently met with the state hoping the revised plan would be better.

"I looked at the plans and realized they had made it worse," LeBlanc said.

Taking all of his parking and making Louisa Street one way is much worse than dealing with five years of construction, he said.

The state will work with businesses like Tidbits to try to ease any problems they have. But Bennett conceded the parking issue will be hard to solve.

"I can understand how a business owner would have real concerns," Bennett said, referring to Tidbits. "But we're not taking any of their land."

The parking spaces are public property, and the improvements will improve the area as a whole, he said.

LeBlanc doesn't know where Tidbits will move.

"We have a couple of years to figure that out," he said.

While Tidbits plans on moving, Media Works, a marketing company located behind Tidbits on Louisa Street, is staying put, vowed owner Fred Dietsch.

"We're committed to the San Marco community," Dietsch said. "We'll just dig in and deal with it."

Dietsch wants construction around his business to occur at night, but the state said it's too early to commit to that since a contractor hasn't been hired.

Dietsch said he can't stop the project, so he'll try to make the best of it.

"But you could have knocked me over with a feather when they [the state] told me they were taking all of my parking," Dietsch said.

larry.hannan@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4470

link: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-11-08/story/southside-begin...