Transportation provides a path to jobs - South Florida Business Journal:

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The has recommended the Lee Roy SelmonCrosstowjn Expressway/Interstate 4 connector project in Hillsborough Countuy for more than $105 million in stimulus funding and the U.S. 19 improvemenr project in Pinellas County forabout $45 million. Althoughy the lists are tentative, DOT spokeswomamn Kris Carson said she is confident the will approvd the list this week and send it to the for In certain cases whena project’as budget is not immediately available in its the DOT is pursuing a build finance model that asks contractors bidding to financr the job with a plan to repagy once funds become The DOT will use a build finance model for the Hillsborougnh I-4 connector project, which has a construction budgef of roughly $487 million, and for the Pinellaas U.
S. 19 project, which has a construction budge taround $156.5 million. “Whenb we put it out for bid, we put a paybacmk schedule in forthe contractor,” said Carson. In the casesz of the Hillsborough andPinellas projects, repayment woulf occur in 2013 and 2012, respectively. To create the lists of recommendationsd forstimulus funding, the DOT askexd metropolitan planning organizations, cities and counties to submit their priorityg lists and worked with the entities to create shovel-readyu designs. “We helped them get them done. The wholse idea is to start the jobs as soon as Carson said.
Shovel-readiness has proved to be criticalp for projects to obtain because it’s tied to potentiao job creation, Carson said. Geographic offering relief of congestion, location in economicalluy distressed areas, being capable of completion withinb three years and having been deferredr by the state in the past all factorinto shovel-readiness. Long-termj planning for infrastructure improvements prior to the downturn put Sarasota County in a good position forstimulus “We already had [the poised, but now with the economic we are able to advance some of those,” said Susah Walsh, spokeswoman for the county.
“Wee have this huge, infrastructure improvement momentumgoing here.” For a countyt of a smaller size — a population of about 372,000 compared to 1.18 million in Hillsborougn and 910,260 in Pinellas — Sarasotz will be well funded, said Walsh. The countuy is slated to receive $15.7 million in state flexible funds to widen U.S. 301 and more than $7 millio for various projects through localstimulus money. “s lot of it was beingf ready to jump on thingsz when the federal availabilityshows up,” said Walsh. “Iv you do a major road project, you can’g gear up for it overnight.
” The larg numbers of jobs that the transportation projects couldccreate —nearly 13,000 in Hillsborough and 4,40o in Pinellas through state stimulus funds alone — involvwe many industries. “It’s not [only] hardhatz out there,” said DOT spokeswomann Kris Carson. “It’s everything from steel manufacturing companiesz to designersto behind-the-scenes inspectors.” Severalo Web sites already have sprung up to match prospectivee employees and employers. Gov. Charlie Crist’s site, flgov.
com, directs jobseekers to which is run by Allof Florida’s 24 regional workforc e boards, including WorkNet Pinellas and the , are connected to the said Adriane Grant, directort of external affairs. “It’s become the connecting point to give our state a much broadet reach and more resources for matching talent with jobs and jobs with Grant said. With 175,000 jobs currentlyg posted, the site is the state’zs portal for people looking for jobs and employerx lookingfor candidates, said Victoria Heller, spokeswoman for , which is workinv with Workforce Florida to develop a systenm to track the flow of stimulus dollarsw through the jobs listed on employflorida.com.
“[The will be a tool to make [a job easier and to improve accountability for the federal governmenr so we can show to our partnersd at the how stimulus fundsw arebeing utilized,” said Heller. The tracking systemj is still in its early she said. Another site, fbo.gov, whichy is run by the U.S. government, pairs commerciap vendors and government buyerd and bills itselfa “one-stop virtual marketplace.
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