DUVAL STREET

REVITALIZATION & RESILIENCY PROJECT

WELCOME

The City of Key West is committed to helping residents and businesses prepare for the changes brought on by climate change through resiliency and revitalization efforts. To that end, resiliency and revitalization of Duval Street is a top community and city priority. With community awareness and public engagement being critical components to the success of these efforts, the City of Key West has created Duval4All.com to increase the level of community involvement and keep the community informed at all stages of the official Duval Street Resiliency and Revitalization project.

VISION | GOALS

The goal of this project is to strengthen and revitalize Duval Street to increase opportunities for public use of Duval Street for leisure, commerce, and tourism, reduce costs to businesses and taxpayers, improve safety for pedestrians and vehicles, enhance mobility for local public transit, and most importantly, improve Duval Street’s resilience and infrastructure, with special attention to risks from sea level rise and flooding.

PROCESS

This program is expected to be implemented over a period of ten (10) years and includes the following components:

Process

Throughout the life of this project, the City of Key West will engage residents and businesses in order to provide the community with transparent, up-to-date, accurate information on the progress of revitalization efforts on Duval Street, and you can find all the latest information and project updates at Duval4All.com as well as by following the project on social media at Duval4All.

HISTORY

This project arose from the need for extensive renovations on Duval Street that will preserve and augment this historic corridor for leisure and commerce while improving its resilience and infrastructure, with special attention to risks from sea level rise and flooding. This program is expected to be implemented over a period of ten (10) years.

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE | NEIGHBORHOOD CONNECTIONS

The City of Key West is committed to helping its residents and businesses prepare and adapt to climate change and sea level rise. To that end, the City of Key West was awarded two grants to create an official Adaptation Plan, which started in 2023 and involves the public in discussions and decisions about what to expect in the coming decades.

In order to ensure that the community is up to date and informed, the City’s Adaptation Plan enables residents and community members to sign up for notifications and updates on projects related to resilience, sea level rise, and climate change, and these updates and notifications will also be available for the Duval Street project.

There will be ample opportunities for community engagement throughout the life of this project, with information on meeting dates, times, and agendas, community and stakeholder meetings, and other opportunities to connect the community and ensure that all interested parties are kept informed and engaged. You can find this information on the website and on the project’s social media pages.

FAQs

1. What is the Duval Street Economic Corridor Resiliency and Revitalization Plan?
It is a plan to identify improvements which will best utilize the Duval Street Corridor as a public space that will benefit the community and its visitors. This will guide future resilience improvements to best protect the Corridor, adjacent buildings, and businesses from extreme weather events.

2. Why is the City doing this project?
Key West is highly vulnerable to climate changes, and the increasing frequency and intensity of storms and other environmental events such as rising tides and heavy rainfall. The City is evaluating areas throughout our community that are most at risk. Duval Street is an iconic and critically important economic and social part of our community, and it is the City’s intent to be proactive in protecting it for the decades to come.

3. How is this project being funded?
The project is being funded through a combination of Federal funding through the Rebuild Florida Community Development Block Grant – Mitigation program and through funding from the City of Key West.

4. When will the project start?
Preliminary work has already begun on completing the vulnerability assessment and other data analytics to provide an understanding of current infrastructure conditions and risks. Public involvement will begin in January 2024, and the design process will follow.

5. What on Duval Street will this include?
The planning work will focus on the public right-of-way, from building frontage to building frontage along much of Duval Street and extend the full length of the Corridor. This will include evaluating existing drainage, lighting, landscape, vehicle travel lanes, sidewalks, loading zones, building access, and all other physical elements of the streetscape.

6. When will construction begin?
This process will produce the overall plan for the Corridor. Once completed, the City of Key West will initiate the detailed construction drawings for the pilot segment and will pursue funding to implement the plan and determine a timeline to begin construction. There is no date set for construction.

7. How will this impact my business?
This phase of the process is only to develop the plan. There will be no impact on businesses at this time.

8. What about when the roadway is under construction?
The City of Key West and the consultant team understand the major economic and social role the Corridor has in our City. Therefore, when construction does occur, there will be significant involvement with business and property owners in developing the construction phasing, implementation, and overall strategy to minimize impact to businesses. It is the desire of the City to enable all businesses to remain open throughout this project.

9. Will the City require me to make improvements to my building as a part of this?
No, the City cannot require property owners to make improvements or adapt buildings as they are today, provided they comply with current code requirements. One of the goals of this project is to identify ways in which property owners may “harden” or make voluntary improvements to their buildings to be more resilient to the environmental risks we face – flooding, rising tides, wind, and other potential threats.

10. How much will this project cost to implement?
It is unknown at this time. The cost estimates for any reconstruction or other implementation steps will be developed after the community selects the most suitable long-term solution to enhance and protect the Corridor.