Expect developers and land speculators to ramp up their interest in the I-95/Oslo Road interchange proposal now that state transportation officials are working on a design for the project in south Indian River County.
Right now citrus trucks and garbage haulers predominate along Oslo Road west of 58th Avenue, because the land west of the proposed interchange is designated for agricultural use, while the area just east of the highway is used for industrial purposes, including the INEOS biofuel plant, and the county landfill.
But the new I-95 interchange could change that.
More residential development could creep west toward a new potential interchange, said Bill Handler, president of Port St. Lucie-based GHO Homes, one of the largest new home builders in the area with construction underway in a dozen subdivisions in and around Vero Beach.
“It would be good for developers,” Handler said. “You would change the dynamic of the county.”
An Indian River County transportation planner said traffic volumes on Oslo Road (west of 58th Avenue) are about 4,000 vehicles per day.
“According to our recently adopted 2040 long-range plan, the traffic volumes on that same section of Oslo Road will increase to 16,000-18,000 vehicles per day by the year 2040 with the new interchange,” said Brian Freeman, a senior planner with the Metropolitan Planning Organization, a federally funded organization that works with local governments on transportation planning.
During that time the county’s population is expected to increase from 143,000 to about 202,000 in 2040, Freeman noted.
Handler said Indian River County could encourage more development along Oslo Road toward the new interchange with residential and commercial zoning.
“If you have more access and more significant retail, you might have the county feel larger,” Handler said.
John McCoy, Indian River County community development chief, said the county will, in fact, be reevaluating land-use designations in the area of the proposed interchange.
The Oslo Road interchange proposal has been kicked around for at least a decade. It would be nearly four miles south of the State Road 60 interchange at I-95, while the Indrio Road interchange would be about 5 ½ miles south of the Oslo Road interchange.
In past years, federal highway officials rejected FDOT justification reports for an Oslo Road interchange.
The application was hurt in the past because the Indrio Road interchange just to the south was not a heavily used exit, Freeman said. “It was a strike against putting another exit at Oslo Road.”
Freeman said the state’s latest application “stressed how the interchange could affect emergency services and hurricane evacuation for South County.”
That did the trick, and the Federal Highway Administration now has accepted the most recent FDOT environmental impact and design concept documents.
The new interchange will cost $46 million for design, permitting, right-of-way acquisition and construction.
Construction is expected to begin in 2024, according to Ron Kareiva, the Florida Department of Transportation project manager for the Oslo Road interchange. Projects of this size typically take two to three years, Kareiva said.
But when will development follow?
Nobody quite knows that exactly.
“The story of Oslo Road hinges on what the county chooses to do regarding land use,” Handler says. “Will it allow commercial development? If not, it’s just another Indrio Road.”
