Polk's Location Lures Growth

By BILLY TOWNSEND The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 29, 2007

LAKELAND - Everybody seems to want a piece of Polk County these days.

Rail companies. Highway builders. Universities. Regional planning groups. They're all looking at Polk's geography and growth and seeing opportunity.

"Polk is the center of the state," said state Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland. "We're in the catbird seat."

But Polk's growing options are starting to force difficult choices. For a county increasingly pulled in at least three directions, it's getting tougher to reach consensus on which direction to look.

"What's happening now is that political issues, mostly centered around transportation, are starting to stoke this great [regional] divide in Polk," Dockery said.

That dynamic is playing out in ways both trivial and serious.

This month, the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce touted a study showing that East Polk population growth had greatly outpaced West Polk over the past decade. Yet the study classified about 85 percent of the county's land mass as East Polk.

And the University of South Florida has been test-driving names for its new USF-Lakeland campus. The possibilities include: USF-East, USF-Heartland and USF-Polk. Campus CEO Marshall Goodman seems to have headed off controversy by backing USF-Polytechnic as a nonregional calling card for the campus' focus on applied science.

A more far-reaching flashpoint was the question of whether to join Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority, which the Legislature created this spring - but Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the funding for last week. State Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, blocked Dockery's effort to include Polk, saying the county should retain its independence.

At the same time, Alexander has been a backer of the proposed Heartland Parkway, which would link Polk's population centers via limited access highway with the rural "Heartland" region of Southwest Florida. Alexander said he sees that area to the south, where companies he and his family control own tens of thousands of acres, as a way to tie together east and west Polk.

Most everyone involved in the Interstate 4 corridor's development says Polk, with a population of more than 550,000, has finally reached its potential as a regional crossroad and that its days as a relative backwater are over. The challenge now is to prevent the county from becoming Balkanized by geography and different lifestyles.

County Of Contrasts

Three distinct regions of the state touch one another in Polk. And the county reflects this.

West Polk, primarily Lakeland, generally considers itself an independent part of the Bay area. It is the largest city in the county, and it has the most urban amenities and broadest employment and tax base.

The northeast part of the county is booming as Orlando's attractions-influenced suburbs spread along U.S. 27 and I-4. Many people leave Polk to work at the theme parks or in Orlando proper. This area's growth has taken off in the past decade. It doesn't have a clear center, though a planned development at the U.S. 27 and I-4 interchange could become that. The nearest cities to the area are Davenport and Haines City.

There are also the traditional small towns along and south of State Road 60. They include Lake Wales, Frostproof, Fort Meade, Mulberry and Bartow, the seat of county government. All have strong ties to the agriculture or phosphate industries. Alexander considers this area part of Florida's Heartland, consisting of the rural, south-central Florida counties that would surround the Heartland Parkway. Alexander represents most of that area. He has said he had students from the Heartland region in mind as much as Polk County when fighting for the new USF-Lakeland campus.

Winter Haven, Polk's second largest city, lies in the center of the county. That makes it a wild card, with ties to all three regions.

Ron Morrow, executive director of the East Polk Committee of 100, an economic development group based in Winter Haven, said efforts to improve the road system in the northeast will better link it to Winter Haven's "traditional" East Polk orbit. In his 38 years of working in Polk County, Morrow said he's seen the regional inclinations of Winter Haven shift, from a clear identification with the Bay area to an increasing attachment to Orlando. Its nightlife, shopping and airport are more accessible.

If northeast Polk and Winter Haven more fully integrate, East Polk could supplant Lakeland as Polk's driving economic and political force.

The CSX Question

The massive CSX rail hub and distribution center proposed for southeast Winter Haven could help determine Polk's regional future. It promises enormous benefits for Winter Haven's tax base and the Orlando region, where it's the key to a $491 million state plan for commuter rail, which would extend to Polk's eastern border.

Morrow said the CSX project could solidify the county's place at the heart of a longed-for Central Florida super region stretching from St. Petersburg to Daytona Beach. He cites the Orlando rail tie to the east and the possibility of linking by rail to the Port of Tampa in the west. Add to that the Polk portion of the Heartland Parkway and the new USF campus, and Morrow sees a vibrant county capable of participating on its own terms with any region it chooses.

That's the optimistic view.

Construction of any portion of the Heartland Parkway is years away, if at all. Yet CSX wants to open its rail hub within the next three years. An increasing number of local governments in Polk say the project is moving too fast, with little thought being given to the regional impact of building a virtually industrial city in a largely rural, residential area. There are also the up to 1,150 projected daily truck trips on S.R. 60 and other highways and sharply increased train traffic through the heart of cities such as Lakeland.

Asked whether he's concerned about Polk's ability to accommodate CSX, Alexander said, "Sure I'm worried, but I have to look at what's happening. The CSX thing is a reality. It's going to spur economic development. The county really doesn't have a choice but to improve our infrastructure."

Alexander sees the Heartland Parkway as a solution.

Dockery, by contrast, wants to slow the CSX project's approval. She's worried that Polk's changes are leading to an unhappy middle ground between rural and urban. "We're not keeping up with our infrastructure, and we're losing our rural quality of life," she said.

Where's The Public Debate?

Concerns over the CSX hub don't break down entirely along regional lines, but they do highlight complications of planning in a county that has more than a dozen incorporated cities or towns and a fast-growing unincorporated population.

There has been talk of a countywide transportation summit, but it hasn't materialized.

Lakeland's government and business community have been reluctant to discuss the CSX hub publicly. Privately, a number of officials have said they fear upsetting Winter Haven or stoking regional bad feelings. Lakeland's meetings to discuss concerns have been carefully choreographed by business groups and government staff so as not to trigger open government laws.

At the same time, Winter Haven City Manager David Greene, who has aggressively committed his city to the CSX project, has refused to speak to The Tribune about the project.

The first politician to formally question the CSX project and its approval process was Polk County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson. He's dismayed by the lack of public airing of the issues.

Good decision making "becomes increasingly difficult as elected officials either fly blind, on one hand, or on the other attempt to shield themselves from offending any constituency by hiding behind [government] management," Wilkinson said. "It gets to where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing."

Reporter Billy Townsend can be reached at (863) 284-1409 or wtownsend@tampatrib.com.