HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Hillsborough County leaders are working on a project to make it safer for students who walk to Sumner High School in Riverview.
Building out a connected sidewalk to both sides of Balm Road will give students a safe place to walk.
The county said the main goal is to improve safety. The project aims to give students a safe place to walk that leads from their neighborhood right to Sumner High School.
“This is a multi-phase project to fill in the sidewalk gaps,” Amanda Sotomayer said. "We constructed the eastern side of the sidewalk last year, so we are going to be filling in the gaps between the high school and 301."
Sumner High School was built a few years ago to hold more students because other Hillsborough Schools were at capacity. The county said the area surrounding the school has become much more developed, making the sidewalk that much more important.
“There is a lot of growth in this area, a lot of new communities. This is why the new high school was built," Sotomayer said. "This is a very important project to provide safety for all the students that are walking from the surrounding neighborhoods to the high school."
She explained the last piece of the puzzle is a little chunk of land on the south side of Balm Road. The county needs to acquire that land, but first, the commissioners have to approve it. That is what they will be discussing today.
If they give it the green light, then the land acquisition team can move forward with appraisals and negotiations with the property owners.
The sidewalk on the north side of Balm Road should be finished by the end of the year.
