Kings Highway Construction Won't End When Charlotte County's Part Does. Here's the Lake Suzy Timeline

"You can see the center lane is now gone… it takes it down to the single lane," Charlotte County Public Works public relations manager Chad Ray told WINK News about the new pattern at Kings Highway and Sandhill Boulevard.

If you live in Lake Suzy, you already know that lane. It sits between your driveway and Walmart, the Charlotte County shopping corridor, and the I-75 on-ramp. You have probably heard October 2027 as the date the work ends. That date only covers Charlotte County's stretch. The state has its own widening planned for the DeSoto County side of Kings Highway, the part that runs through Lake Suzy, and it's set to go out to bid in the spring of 2027, before the Charlotte work is scheduled to finish.

Where the squeeze stands this week

Charlotte County is widening Kings Highway from Sandhill Boulevard to the DeSoto County line. The two-lane road will become a four-lane divided road with protected turn lanes, street lighting, a 10-foot multi-use path on the west side, and a 6-foot sidewalk on the east side. Wright Construction is the contractor. The county's project page lists a construction budget of $9,696,002.70 and a total project budget of $10,564,117.70.

The traffic shift affects southbound drivers entering Charlotte County through the Sandhill intersection, where the road narrows to one lane. The county told WINK that drivers feel the lane reduction most in the morning and afternoon. A resident who lives off Kings Highway told the station that pulling out at rush hour takes patience, but other drivers have been "very generous" about letting people in and out.

The new potable water main from Sandhill Boulevard to Kingsway Circle is done, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has approved its connection permit. Crews have started a new stormwater system along the east side and are building curb, gutter and sidewalk near Walmart. The county's plan for November covers both sides of the road:

• Installing stormwater drainage
• Preparing and placing the roadway sub-base
• Building concrete curb and gutter
• Building sidewalk improvements

The county says the project is currently ahead of schedule.

Why the lanes keep moving

The single lane at Sandhill isn't the last change you'll see. In a YourSun column whose writer had "friends and neighbors in Lake Suzy" in mind, Ray said the county is "doing the widening in phases." He also said more lane shifts are coming as the work moves along.

The power poles along the road moved only about 6 feet. Ray called the move necessary and said "most of the new lanes, however, will be on the other side of the road — the Walmart side." The concrete wall going up near the creek just east of Kings Highway is "similar to a seawall," he said. Stormwater drainage will be directed toward it, and the wall will act as a buffer. Ray also said he watched the new pattern himself and saw that big trucks were what slowed traffic, more than cars. Traffic engineers are working to keep things moving as smoothly as they can.

On the county's schedule, construction started April 27, 2026, with a forecast completion of October 19, 2027. The YourSun columnist's view: "when that's done, we won't be out of the woods."

The second project is scheduled to start before the first one ends

North of the county line, Kings Highway is CR 769 in DeSoto County, and that stretch is a separate project. The Florida Department of Transportation's project 440342-2 covers a 1.2-mile widening from the Charlotte County line to SW Glenadine Avenue. It is still in the design phase.

At a joint meeting of the Charlotte County-Punta Gorda MPO and the Heartland Regional TPO on May 6, 2026, FDOT staff gave this schedule. Final design was expected to be finished in November 2026, the construction contract was expected to go out to bid in March 2027, and construction was estimated to take about 1.5 to 2 years. The project's roadway design documentation lists a bid date of March 31, 2027. The money is already programmed. FDOT's District One STIP report, current as of July 1, 2026, puts construction in 2027 and lists $33,452,025 for the segment in that year.

Here are the two projects side by side:

Laid out together, the dates show the problem. Under these schedules, the DeSoto contract goes out to bid about seven months before Charlotte County's forecast finish. Even if DeSoto crews started the day bids were opened, 18 months of work would run to the fall of 2028, and two years would run into spring 2029. Kings Highway near the county line could have crews on both sides of the line for part of 2027. Then the work moves north, onto the stretch Lake Suzy uses to get to every side street.

How the finished DeSoto stretch changes your turns

The Charlotte segment will add protected turn lanes. On the DeSoto side, the design changes how left turns work. FDOT's design criteria for the section from SW Courtly Manor Drive to SW Glenadine Avenue call for a 19.5-foot median.

The design documentation says side-street and driveway access to Kings Highway "will not be impacted." It also says "the construction of a raised median will require U-Turn movements for many motorists that do not have to perform U-Turns now." The same document says FDOT is still evaluating which median openings will be closed, relocated or substantially altered. Community concerns it records include the number of trucks making U-turns and the limited room within the right of way.

So if you live in Lake Suzy, the widening is likely to change your everyday routes, not just how long the drive takes. If you now turn left straight out of your street, you may need to turn right and make a U-turn at the next median opening. Trucks will be making that same move, and the design record already calls that a concern.

Why both counties keep pushing

The reason for all this work showed up at that May meeting. Staff put existing traffic on Kings Highway at about 17,400 vehicles a day. Commissioners said the road has become more important as I-75 gets more congested, and several members noted that residents increasingly use Kings Highway and US 17 instead of the interstate. Ray framed the Charlotte work the same way to WINK: "We're building out for those future expansions for the commercial and business and residential as it comes along this corridor here."

The 1.2 miles to SW Glenadine Avenue is only the first piece. According to the meeting minutes, the DeSoto widening runs from the Charlotte County line to Peace River Street and was split into phases because of funding limits. The Glenadine segment is the phase funded for construction in FY 2027. Both boards agreed to make Kings Highway a joint regional transportation priority.

For Lake Suzy, the schedule on record now has Charlotte County crews working toward an October 2027 finish, FDOT bidding the DeSoto segment in March 2027, and about 1.5 to 2 years of state construction after that, all on the same road.

Lake Suzy is home, and we keep track of what changes on the roads you drive every day, along with everything else. If you'd like a hand planning around the Kings Highway work, or you want to talk about how it fits into your next move in Charlotte or DeSoto County, reach out to Get Your Florida Life. We're glad to share what we know.