A handful of Tampa Bay-area road projects are off the negotiating table in the Transportation and Economic Development budget, with the House and Senate landing on the same number in the House’s first bump offer — and the two members steering the talks both call the region home.
House Budget Chair Lawrence McClure and Senate Appropriations Chair Ed Hooper are running the conference. Hooper’s district, which covers north Pinellas and west Pasco, takes in several of the corridors getting funded.
The biggest is Pinellas County’s East Lake Road capacity work, where both chambers agree on $7.5 million. The 9.3-mile north Pinellas corridor runs at nearly double its designed load in spots — carrying as many as 62,000 vehicles a day on a road built for about 36,000 — and serves as a commuter spine between Pasco and Pinellas. The county is in a yearslong study phase toward an eventual widening.
In Belleair, two projects are squared away. The town’s Barbara Circle reconstruction — the second phase of work that already rebuilt Carl and Shirley avenues — gets $4.2 million for roadway, drainage, water lines, sidewalks and lighting in an area that flooded during Hurricane Milton. A separate scour-critical bridge project gets $400,000.
Manatee County’s extension of 51st Street West, the unbuilt stretch from 53rd Avenue West to El Conquistador Parkway that Commissioners designated the Charlie Kirk Memorial Parkway, lands at $3 million. The county pegs the full corridor at roughly $35 million and aims to break ground in 2026 or 2027. Commissioners chose a future road rather than rename an existing one, citing cost and the prospect of neighborhood pushback.
And in Pasco County, the Port Richey crossing at Grand Boulevard and U.S. 19 gets $250,000. The city has pushed for years to add capacity at the intersection, which the Florida Department of Transportation has tied to a long-sought golf cart crossing linking Port Richey to New Port Richey.
The lines are agreed for now, but the full budget is not. Negotiators still have unresolved Tampa Bay projects to settle.
Leaders say they can still finish before the end of May, but it could be close. A budget memo from House Speaker Daniel Perez has McClure and Hooper meeting at 8 a.m. Tuesday to hold talks “until completion.”
If the budget hits desks that day, it starts the constitutionally required 72-hour cooling-off period, teeing up a House floor vote Friday, May 29, with the Senate to follow before Sine Die — with a month to spare before the July 1 fiscal year.
It would be the second straight year of a drawn-out budget; last year’s wasn’t passed until June 16.
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Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review were performed by Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team.
