By Steve Plunkett
Often-flooded Polo Drive will get a new catch basin to drain the low-lying roadway to the Intracoastal Waterway in the coming months.
Town Manager Greg Dunham urged town commissioners Dec. 8 to seize the opportunity to install a storm sewer pipe at the southern border of 3140 Polo Drive while a house is being built to minimize disruption to the future homeowners.
The first step was to hire engineers to design and get permits for a 139-foot underground pipe, which will penetrate the sea wall on the eastern end of the canal between Palm Way and Middle Road. Dunham estimated that cost at $13,700.
“I think this makes good sense for the town to go ahead and do this. We have the money budgeted to do it,” Dunham said.
“Hopefully we’ll begin to address some of the problems,” Mayor Scott Morgan said.
“I thought this would be done a while back,” Commissioner Joan Orthwein said.
Engineers at Mathews Consulting were the first to realize the town could do the storm sewer project when they embarked on a 10-year capital improvements study for Gulf Stream. They proposed mapping and surveying the site, preparing contract and construction documents, estimating construction costs and preparing permit applications. Dunham added 10 percent to their $12,484 proposal to cover contingencies.
Mathews said it will take seven to 11 weeks for it to collect data, design the project and apply for permits. The firm assumed there are no sea wall tie-backs or pile caps that will affect placing the outfall pipe within the drainage easement.
In June 2015 the commission re-platted three lots at the southwest corner of Palm Way and Polo Drive into two lots, which became 3140 and 3180 Polo Drive. As part of the re-plat process, a 10-foot-wide drainage easement was relocated to the southern property line of 3140. The easement goes from the edge of the pavement west to the sea wall, Dunham said.
Financier James Cacioppo and his wife, Jennifer, own the parcel at 3140 Polo Drive, which the property appraiser considers vacant and values at $2.6 million. James Cacioppo, whom bloomberg.com identifies as a Colgate graduate with an MBA from Harvard, is the principal at the Boca Raton office of One East Capital Advisors. Jennifer Cacioppo graduated from Sweet Briar College, according to a 1997 wedding announcement in The New York Times.
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