Community Budget Issue Requests - Tracking Id #581FY0001 Lockhart Drainage Improvement
Requester:		F.T. Johnson			Organization:		City of Fort Lauderdale
Project Title:		Lockhart Drainage Improvement			Date Submitted:		02/07/2001 3:55:27 PM
Sponsors:		Ron Greenstein
Statewide Interest:		The stadium is an important element of the economy since it attracts several hundred thousand vehi
Recipient:		City of Fort Lauderdale			Contact:		Vince Gizzi
		100 North Andrews Avenue			Contact Phone:		(954) 761-5823
		Fort Lauderdale 33301
Counties:		Broward
Service Area:		Government Entity
Project Description:
Lockhart Stadium is a professional sporting event stadium located in the City of Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, Florida. Lockhart stadium is the home site for the Miami Fusion, a professional soccer team in the AMajor League Soccer@ League as well as the site of many School Board of Broward County football and soccer home games for Fort Lauderdale high schools. In addition, the facility hosts several large-scale local and national special events throughout the year. The facility is located in the northwest area of Fort Lauderdale, approximately a half-mile west of I-95, just north of Commercial Boulevard and is considered to be a valuable amenity to local residents and tourists. The stadium is served by a parking lot located around the perimeter of Lockhart Stadium. It consists mainly of asphalt and hard-packed limerock. Although the stadium has a lease agreement with private tenants, the City of Fort Lauderdale is responsible for maintaining the parking lot areas. The parking lot surrounding Lockhart Stadium currently experiences significant flooding problems. Historically, even relatively minor storms have resulted in prolonged flooding, which creates a potential health/safety hazard to the public, results in significant inconvenience to pedestrians, inhibits vehicular access/circulation and detracts from the appearance of the stadium. In many cases, during or shortly after a storm, the fans, athletes and officials at the stadium have waded through deep water on their way from the locker rooms to the playing field and stadium seating area. In addition to the safety issues, public inconvenience and aesthetic impacts, the prolonged ponding over the surface of the asphalt tends to reduce the service life of the parking surface, resulting in additional maintenance costs to the City. The existing drainage systems serving the north and south parking lots of Lockhart Stadium consist entirely of on-site, self-contained exfiltration systems. The existing systems are considered to be inadequate for the overall site drainage since prolonged flooding occurs during even storms of moderate intensity and duration. A positive drainage system does exists along NW 12 Avenue (east of Lockhart Stadium), however, the on site drainage systems have not been connected to it due to water quality issues and because that line does not have the capacity to convey the entire quantity of runoff generated by the parking lot. The net surface area of the asphalt parking lot serving and Lockhart Stadium is approximately 25 Acres. The topography is flat with slight undulations; site runoff is conveyed by sheetflow. The site generally drains from the north to the south and from the east to the west (see Figure 1). For the purposes of this conceptual design, it will be assumed that catchment areas contained within the stadium and playing fields currently have adequate drainage and are self-contained. The parking lot surface is at an average elevation of 11.0 and the average wet-season water table is at approximately elevation 3.0. The underlying soil consists primarily of fine to medium grained sands with adequate percolation characteristics. Previously conducted soil percolation tests have resulted in an average AK@ value of 0.0001 cubic feet per second per square foot. As stated before, any drainage improvements proposed for this project would be required to meet the stringent water quality standards mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as set forth in the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program. Because of the EPA=s water quality requirements and the capacity limitations of the existing positive drainage system on NW 12 Avenue, this concept-level design considers only a self-contained, on-site exfiltration system for disposal of runoff. A more detailed drainage and cost analysis may reveal that partial utilization of the existing positive system on NW 12 Avenue (as an overflow device) and/or utilization of swales may also be feasible and beneficial. Therefore, it is recommended that those options be explored in future (more detailed) stages of design.
Measurable Outcome Anticipated:
Based on the rainfall charts provided in the South Florida Water Management District=s manual for the project=s geographic area (see Figure 2), the amount of rainfall generated by a five-year, one-hour design storm would be about 3.2 inches. The capacity of a system designed to accommodate a five-year storm has a 20% probability of being equaled or exceeded in any given year or a 67% chance of being equaled or exceeded in any five year period of time. Since the area under consideration is almost 100% impervious, the entire amount of precipitation would need to be collected by the proposed drainage system. The runoff generated by the design storm over the 25 acres of impervious area is approximately 290,400 cubic feet. The proposed system has been sized to dissipate the design storm in approximately 4 hours. A cross section of the proposed exfiltration system is provided in Figure 3. The total length of exfiltration trench that would be required to dispose of the runoff is approximately 2,300 feet. In addition to the proposed drainage improvements, because of the flat topography, some milling and resurfacing may be needed to redirect surface flow to the appropriate collection points. The cost of engineering and construction of the conceptual drainage system is estimated to be approximately $320,000.
Amount requested from the State for this project this year:						$320,000
Identify item(s) in the Appropriations Bill to be reduced:
Specific Appropriation #:			1465
Specific Appropriation Title:			Executive Direction & Support Services, Expenses
Amount to be reduced:			$320,000
Fund Source:			General Revenue
Total cost of the project:			$320,000
Request has been made to fund:				Construction
Type of funding match:		Local
	Total Cash Amount:		$75,000		Total In-Kind Amount:		$5,000,000
Was this project previously funded by the State?							No
Is future-year funding likely to be requested?							No
Was this project included in an Agency's Budget Request?							No
Was this project included in the Governor's Recommended Budget?							No
Is there a documented need for this project?							Yes
	Documentation:		Ft. Lauderdale Related Study
Was this project request heard before a publicly noticed meeting of a body of elected officials (municipal, county, or state)?							Yes
	Hearing Body:		City of Fort Lauderdale City Commission
	Meeting Date:		10/16/2000