Tharpe Street Project Wins $23.5 Million Federal Grant for Sidewalks, Turn Lanes and Drainage

Tharpe Street's long-planned rebuild has its money for a first segment. On Friday, October 30, the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency was awarded $23.5 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Safe Streets For All grant program for the Tharpe Street project and other areas in the Northwest Connector Corridor, and the award leaves the first segment of the project fully funded.

The work, as described in the City of Tallahassee's release, addresses the corridor's most basic gaps. Sidewalks will be added along a stretch where most of it has none today. Turn lanes will be added so drivers waiting to turn no longer block the traffic behind them. Open ditches will be replaced with a piped drainage system. The full corridor covers approximately 2.6 miles of Tharpe Street, from Ocala Road to Capital Circle Northwest.

The grant arrives after the Blueprint board voted last month to scale back the scope of its Airport Gateway Project and redirect dollars to other projects, including Tharpe Street - a sequence that had left the corridor's budget drained by growing costs on other projects. Construction on Tharpe Street is expected to begin in 2030, which makes Friday's award a funding milestone rather than a start date: the design and phasing work between now and then decides how much of the corridor the first segment can carry.