KCI played a pivotal role in the widening of SR 714 from a rural two-lane roadway to a four-lane divided urban roadway by leading both PD&E and final design phases.
The project aimed to address congestion and increase capacity through FDOT’s Statewide Acceleration Transformation (SWAT) process, an approach that bridges the multi-year gap between planning and design by taking all phases into consideration at the start of project selection. As the first State Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) Project Development & Environment (PD&E) project approved under the new SWAT process, initial plans needed to outline the full completion of the project and required extensive coordination between the PD&E teams and stakeholders.
During the study phase, FEMA changed its 100-year flood elevation projections along the corridor. To accommodate this update, our team, serving as the Engineer of Record, provided a way to raise the roadway profile three feet and shift it 30 feet to the south to address drainage concerns and minimize right-of-way acquisition impacting adjacent commercial properties. Additional considerations included new sidewalks and buffered bike lanes along both sides of the roadway and a closed drainage system that includes a new four-acre retention pond. Successful coordination led to KCI achieving approval of final documents one month ahead of schedule, significantly faster than previous district PD&E authorizations.
