FELLSMERE — Drivers heading into Fellsmere from the Interstate 95 interchange will soon begin to notice develop on the once defunct hotel site on the north side of County Road 512 – but it’s not a hotel being built. A temporary asphalt plant will be installed on the site to provide asphalt and other support to the widening project of I-95 at the Brevard county line north to Palm Bay.
The Fellsmere City Council, after lengthy questioning, unanimously approved the conditional use of the site as requested by Maitland, Fla.-based Lane Construction Corporation, the company tapped to provide the work on the Florida Department of Transportation project.
In order to approve the asphalt plant, the council also had to reactivate the expired site plans for the Aldea development, on which the plant will sit.
The Aldea plan, originally approved in 2008, has sat largely undeveloped. Infrastructure, including water, sewer and electrical lines have been installed, along with light poles.
“We’re looking at this as bringing new life to this particular site,” City Manager Jason Nunemaker told the council Thursday night. By reactivating the site plan and allowing the property owner to bring in the asphalt plant, the owner should be situated well for when the economy turns around, he added.
The asphalt plant’s operators have six months to pull the building permits needed for a series of modular buildings that would support the project. The plant, itself, has three years to operate.
Geoff Scales, the project manager for the asphalt operation, told the council that he hopes to be done with the work in less time but appreciated the council granting them breathing room.
He also said that he is hoping to bid on another I-95 widening project – the one that would widen the highway between the State Road 60 interchange in Vero Beach to the Fellsmere interchange at County Road 512.
That project will be let out to bid in the coming months.
The asphalt plant site will consist of a few modular buildings used for administration, storage and minor repairs, several stockpiles for materials limited to 20 feet in height, and a 57-foot tall silo.
Some of the paving work will be done during the day, where crews are widening the highway within what is currently the median.
Scales estimates that about 50 truckloads of materials would be brought to the plant daily to be converted to asphalt and that material would then be trucked out to the worksite.
When the work progresses to the point where crews have to close the existing lanes for repaving, another 50 truckloads of material will be brought to the site and processed.
Per FDOT’s regulations, lane closures on the highway are restricted to night, between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m.
“We’ll be active,” Scales said, adding that they would do their best to “be invisible” and good neighbors.
As part of the city’s approval for the asphalt plant, Lane Construction Company has agreed to provide the city with 40 truckloads of millings that the city could then use for parking needs at its Trailhead Preserve.
The plant will also have to install and maintain a landscape buffer along County Road 512 and the southerly 250 feet fronting along I-95 to help screen the operation from view.
A pole light will also be required to be operated at the entrance to the site on those nights when the asphalt plant is running.
