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Delray's Online Business and Community Newspaper |
Delray drafts stimulus wish list; community center included
By Palm Beach Business.com Staff
DELRAY BEACH — The city is proposing a list of 27 “shovel-ready” municipal projects to be funded through the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act a.ka. the stimulus package.
Done at the request of the Florida League of Cities, the city’s list ranges from construction of the delayed community center proposed for the northwest corner of Congress and Lake Ida (price tag about $12 million) to improving the water main along SW 6th Street at a cost of $93,000.
The list represents projects that could be bid within 120 days. The city also has submitted the list to the Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Organization and to the offices of Senators Mel Martinez and Bill Nelson, Republican and Democrat respectively, U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings, Ron Klein, and Robert Wexler, all Democrats.
Other notable projects on the city’s wish list include improvements to the Osceola Park neighborhood (cost: $3.8 million); constructing 5,000 feet of water lines for the reclaimed water system (cost: $3.3 million); the Gateway Mini Parks intended to announce the entrance to the downtown along Atlantic Avenue from the I-95 interchange (cost $1.3 million); constructing alley ways and drainage in the SW 12th-Auburn Avenue area of the city (cost: $1.5 million).
The stimulus package is intended to create jobs. The city estimates the community center project at Congress and Lake Avenue would create 200 construction jobs — by far the most of any project on the list.
The city said it will be monitoring the funding opportunities in order to apply for eligible projects as funds become available. Some of the funding is expected to be distributed through federal programs already in place.
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