Controversial Split Oak Forest toll road likely delayed until 2034

Expressway authority’s budget focuses on upkeep of existing roads

Environmentalists, outdoors enthusiasts and Central Florida residents have for years waged an impassioned campaign to rescue Split Oak Forest from being bisected by an expressway, but it may be the economic ravages of a pandemic that gives them a critical break.

The Central Florida Expressway Authority is crafting a budget for the coming year that focuses on the upkeep of existing roads and postpones until 2034 the extension of the Osceola Parkway across Split Oak Forest in east Orange and Osceola counties.

Construction had been scheduled to begin in 2024.

“Any delay is good,” said Valerie Anderson, who co-founded Friends of Split Oak to rally opposition to the authority’s plan to pave the divided parkway across a corner of the 1,800-acre preservation area. “Time is on our side.”

The tolled Osceola Parkway in

Osceola County would be extended from State Road 417 south of Orlando International Airport nearly 9 miles to the east to cross Split Oak Forest, a conservation property created 20 years ago through a collaboration of state and local partners.

Given approval by the authority last year, the road would cost nearly $790 million and primarily benefit enormous real-estate projects of the Tavistock Development Co. and Suburban Land Reserve, a member with Deseret Ranches of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints corporate family.

A Tavistock spokeswoman declined to comment on the potential delay of the Osceola Parkway construction.

Tavistock and Suburban Land Reserve have offered to set aside more than 1,500 acres as a conservation buffer south and east of Split Oak, potentially resulting in a 5,375-acre spread of protected lands, spanning Split Oak, other park lands, wetlands, critical uplands and former agricultural tracts.

Audubon Florida advocacy director Charles Lee, a vocal proponent of that deal and at odds with many Split Oak defenders, said “a tremendous opportunity will be lost” if over time Tavistock and Suburban Land Reserve decide or are forced to revise development plans to no longer include donating the 1,500 acres.

Suburban Land Reserve spokesman Dale Bills said his organization also had no comment on the proposed budget of the expressway authority.

Authority staff are stressing that if the economy improves and toll revenues rebound more quickly than expected, the Osceola Parkway extension could be moved up. The agency is not halting some interim steps such as design, acquiring right of way and backing an application for state approval to build across the protected land.

“We are hopeful the project will be added back” to a timeline sooner than 2034, authority spokesman Brian Hutchings said.

Osceola County has designated its northeastern corner for cityscale growth in coming decades and has long counted on an eastern extension of the Osceola Parkway as a major transportation corridor, tying that growth to Orlando International Airport, Medical City and urban Orlando.

“I understand the rationale,” said Brandon Arrington, Osceola County commissioner and member of the authority board, of the proposed 10-year delay. “I’m obviously not happy anytime anything gets pushed out of Osceola County. “

Postponing the expressway’s construction for a decade is based on a forecast with assumptions for “a lot that we don’t know,” said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings.

“None of us really has a crystal ball,” Deming said. “These are all models. They take into consideration perhaps what we know today.”

The authority’s board tentatively has agreed that revenues in the coming year will recover and eventually outpace by a few percentage points those of the current year, which saw a peak collapse of more than 70% in early April during sheltering from the disease. The month of April was down an average of more than 50%.

The authority’s tolled network includes state roads 408 through Orlando, 528 near the airport, and 417 and 429 generally east and west of the city.

That scenario assumes the region will not be stricken by a second wave of infections and deaths from COVID-19 this fall, as many experts are warning of nationally.

Also taken into account is the authority’s 725 days of reserve operating cash, or $165 million on hand, and construction funds of $459 million borrowed last year and slated for projects within two years.

But the budget outlook assumes revenues will be 5% less in the coming year than what had been projected prior to the start of the pandemic.

After five years, revenues will be 2.5% less than previously projected, a prediction based on “lasting effects” of fewer tourists and an uptick in the number of residents who telecommute rather than drive to work.

To adjust for the 2.5% decline, “we had to remove about $650 million out of the plan,” said Glenn Pressimone, the authority’s chief of infrastructure.

The budget plan will be considered for approval in June.