- March 28, 2024
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The Bulldog Drive entrance to Town Center, near FPC, will stay at two lanes, instead of four.
The Palm Coast City Council indicated Sept. 27 that it will not resort to eminent domain on Bulldog Drive, a reversal from a formal vote one year ago.
The council voted Sept. 21, 2010, to declare acquiring Gus Ajram’s parcel, on Bulldog Drive, a public necessity — a must in the process of improving the entrance to Town Center off State Road 100.
City Manager Jim Landon cited safety concerns at last year’s meeting, saying appearance wasn’t the issue.
Fast forward almost 12 months to the date, and the council agrees it can complete the puzzle, for now, with the pieces it already has.
The ultimate goal is still to widen Bulldog Drive from two lanes to four. However, at the Sept. 27 workshop, council members agreed informally to back down from employing eminent domain on the property. The process could have cost the city millions of dollars.
“The world has changed since we got this started ... and let’s take a look at where we are today,” Landon said Tuesday.
The Ajram property is located across Bulldog Drive from Flagler Palm Coast High School, just north of the corner lot. Last year, the city purchased the corner lot for $1.1 million. The building has since been knocked down.
The Ajram property was appraised at $466,000 in 2010 by a city-hired firm. The city then offered Ajram $1 million as a final offer, but he wouldn’t come down from his price of $1.25 million.
The money for any improvements along Bulldog Drive does not come out of residential property taxes, but out of the State Road 100 Community Redevelopment Area fund, which is supported by new development.
But because the City Council has decided to cancel its eminent domain case, other drastic changes will be implemented around the high school and along Bulldog Drive to satisfy safety concerns.
Those concerns focus on stormwater and road infrastructure.
The major road improvements would include changing the location of the main entrance for the school and the pickup/dropoff location for the buses. The parking lot located behind FPC would become the pickup/dropoff location under the proposed design.
The current bus area would become more student parking, which is in closer proximity to the main parking at the front of the school, along State Road 100.
The school’s main entrance to the school would be shifted west. Longer turn lanes will also be added to State Road 100.
Landon confirmed that making these changes would ease the current safety concerns.
Additionally, Landon said engineers have suggested that keeping Bulldog Drive as two lanes makes more sense under the current traffic conditions along Bulldog Drive and into Town Center.
He said that could change as more development occurs, adding that if the need for it comes, it would be because there is significant development at Town Center.
“But that future is years away,” Landon said.