{"id":374971,"date":"2026-08-18T21:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T21:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/374971\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T21:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T21:10:09","slug":"the-resurfacing-of-new-tampa-blvd-in-west-meadows-has-finally-begun-neighborhood-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/374971\/","title":{"rendered":"The Resurfacing Of New Tampa Blvd. In West Meadows Has Finally Begun! \u2014 Neighborhood News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"(l.-r.) Tampa\u2019s mobility director Brandon Campbell, Mayor Castor, City Council chair Alan Clendenin, Viera & longtime West Meadows resident Brad van Rooyen in front of New Tampa Blvd. The dark gray strip is the first piece of the roadway to be resurfaced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Note \u2013 we are aware that the resurfacing of New Tampa Blvd. is progressing nicely and is much further along than what appears in this story. The following story was written when the project had just begun the day before.<\/p>\n

When I attended the official groundbreaking ceremony for the resurfacing of a 1.8-mile stretch of New Tampa Blvd. in West Meadows on Aug. 5, I was thrilled to see that one of District 7 Tampa City Council member (and New Tampa resident) Luis Viera\u2019s most ardently-pushed projects was finally coming to fruition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a few projects left that I am still working to get done before I leave office on Nov. 2,\u201d Viera told me after the ceremony also attended by Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, Viera\u2019s fellow City Council member and chair Alan Clendenin, City of Tampa Mobility Department director Brandon Campbell and long-time West Meadows resident Brad van Rooyen. \u201cBut finally getting New Tampa Blvd. repaved has definitely been one of my top priorities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, with the first New Tampa Blvd. repaving already having started the day before the groundbreaking event, all of the day\u2019s speakers were thrilled to get this project finally started.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the loss of the All For Transportation sales surtax,\u201d Mayor Castor said, \u201cwhich would have been a great source of funding for paving projects like this throughout our city, we\u2019ve had to look at other options. We\u2019ve used a lot of our General Fund we\u2019ve put into paving projects. We\u2019re also looking at our regional infrastructure accelerator and some other ways to not only solve our transportation issues, but also the safety and conditions of our roads.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She lauded the work of the city\u2019s two in-house paving crews, which she said, \u201cThey can do our [paving] work at about half the price in about half the time [of using an outside contractor], so they\u2019ve been doing a really great job.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Tampa Mayor Jane Castor & Dist. 7 City Councilman Luis Viera at the groundbreaking event for the resurfacing of New Tampa Blvd. in West Meadows on Aug. 5.<\/p>\n

Mayor Castor also noted that, \u201cWe set a record in the City of Tampa last year, paving over 80 miles of roadways. But, even though that doesn\u2019t begin to address the needs of our community, it really shows that we are focused on paving our streets.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also complimented the city\u2019s \u201cFix It Fast\u201d program. \u201cAnyone that sees a pothole in a roadway, signs being down, anything like that, if you call, the goal is within 72 hours to fix that. And, most of them are done in 48 hours.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And finally, she said, \u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve been very intentional about is making sure that we\u2019re hitting every single neighborhood. If anybody has a question about our paving progress and what roads we intend to pave in the future, go to Tampa.gov<\/a>. There\u2019s a map that shows all of the paving that\u2019s been done and the streets we\u2019re going to hit in the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also noted, however, that while \u201cit\u2019s an inconvenience for our driving public to go over bumpy roads and potholes, for us, as that road deteriorates, it goes from a simple paving job to a rebuilding job. Every road in the city is graded, and we are hitting the worst first.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When introducing Viera, the Mayor said, \u201cShort of jumping up on my desk with a map of New Tampa Blvd. saying \u2018Pave this or else,\u2019 he has been on this project relentlessly. So, I want to say thank you to Luis and his persistence and for really being a champion for New Tampa.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Viera started his comments by saying that, \u201cSince I\u2019ve been in office, with K-Bar Ranch forthcoming, we\u2019ve gotten about $20 million in new parks funding for New Tampa alone and about 80% of that has been in partnership between City Council and Mayor Castor, who has proven herself to be, in my time, not just a good person, but a real supporter of New Tampa.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And of course, Luis reiterated his slogan that New Tampa \u201cis the Alaska of Tampa. Most of the people in New Tampa aren\u2019t from Tampa. They\u2019re from up north and different parts of the world. We\u2019re religiously and culturally diverse and all we want are safe neighborhoods and just the basics. This project is a very big win for New Tampa.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Viera also mentioned that he and van Rooyen \u201cwent to high school together. Brad helped me out on my first campaign and since I got elected, this road has been his Moby Dick and he is Captain Ahab. He is obsessed with this road because he\u2019s a community leader here in West Meadows and he\u2019s a wonderful person and a good friend and a great family man.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next, Viera introduced Clendenin, whom he called, \u201ca good friend, a good and decent person and a great community leader.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Council chair started his comments by saying, \u201cTo say that Councilman Viera is a champion for New Tampa would be the biggest understatement anyone at this [event] would make today. I\u2019ve never met anyone as passionate about his community as Councilman Viera has been about New Tampa serving on City Council.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Since] we started this, we have exponentially increased our paving budget,\u201d Clendenin said. \u201cWorking with the administration, we have doubled our in-house paving crew. If you drive around the city, you see paving projects in every corner of the city. So, wherever you live in the City of Tampa, [your streets] are on our radar.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that, \u201cWe\u2019re making up for decades and decades of neglect of the roads not being paved. So, this isn\u2019t a problem solved in one, two or three years; it\u2019s a much longer-term project, but we will get to those roads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a commitment on City Council and the administration to make sure we have the funding and the other six people I sit with on City Council are absolutely committed to improving the city\u2019s infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for New Tampa for this accomplishment. This is the first, not the last. And, we look forward to continuing this momentum.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Up next was Campbell, who said that, \u201cYou\u2019ll probably notice that the contractor is not out here today because this road carries about 12,000 cars a day, which hopefully means that we\u2019ll have 12,000 happy customers at the end of this project. But, it also means that they\u2019re doing most of their work at night.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Campbell also noted that along with New Tampa Blvd., \u201cwe recently repaved Commerce Palms and Compton Dr. as well \u2014 and that really just highlights our commitment to not only New Tampa, but to all areas of the city.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that, \u201cSo, far this year, we\u2019re at about 30 lane miles of resurfacing and this project will ad three-and-a-half more lane miles to that bank as we make our way towards last year\u2019s record of 80 lane miles being resurfaced. Since 2019, we have resurfaced over 330 lane miles throughout the city, which I think is a testament to the commitment from the Mayor, City Council and my department.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The final speaker was van Rooyen, the president of The Promenade at West Meadows Homeowners Assn. \u201cand I previously served as president of the West Meadows Property Owners Association. I also served three four-year terms on our Community Development District.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have lived here for 22 years and I honestly thought this project was never going to happen. But, while Marvel has Captain America, we finally got \u2018Capt. New Tampa,\u2019 Luis Viera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank Luis for listening to us. He\u2019s stayed engaged with the community. He heard our concerns and he advocated for us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Tampa asks for very little of the city. We have homeowners associations and CDDs who take care of our infrastructure, so all we ask for from the city are safe roads, mobility and public safety \u2014 and this is the first administration that has heard our concerns. So, thank you to the Mayor, City Council and city staff for making this project a reality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Viera has since posted that now with New Tampa Blvd. underway, \u201cBefore I leave Council, I hope to see the \u2018cut-through\u2019 finally being open for K-Bar Ranch, formal passage of $8 million for the historic K-Bar Ranch park, passage of our Public Safety Master Plan ordinance and some progress on provisional funding for a New Tampa Police Substation presence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(l.-r.) Tampa\u2019s mobility director Brandon Campbell, Mayor Castor, City Council chair Alan Clendenin, Viera & longtime West Meadows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-374971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}