OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Marion County is widening SW and NW 80th Avenue into a four-lane north-south route on the west side of the county, conceived as an alternative to SR 200 and Interstate 75.
The full job covers about 10.5 miles, from SW 90th Street North across SR 40 and on to about half a mile north of U.S. HWY 27. Plans call for extra travel lanes, a median, new or rebuilt intersections, drainage ponds, a sidewalk on one side and a shared-use path on the other.
The work is split into segments.
Segment 1A, from SW 90th Street through SW 80th Street, is already under construction. Crews have been shifting traffic side to side while they build the new west and east halves of the four-lane road.
Segment 3, north of State Road 40, is next in line for heavy construction. Commissioners last month awarded Art Walker Construction of Ocala a $22.9 million contract to rebuild about 3.3 miles from just north of SR 40 to just south of HW 27.
Segment 1B is the next section north of the work already underway. It runs from SW 80th Street to about half a mile past SW 38th Street, through the West Port/On Top of the World area. That stretch still needs leftover right-of-way.
At its September 1, 2026 meeting, commissioners approved a resolution that lets the county finish those Segment 1B buys and, if talks stall, take the land through eminent domain. According to Stacie Causey, the Public Information Specialist for Marion County, written offers have already been sent to every owner still on the list.
“The resolution preparation is being completed should eminent domain proceedings be needed in the future of this project for the listed parcels,” Causey said.
Several Segment 1B parcels were already purchased and were left off the list attached to the meeting agenda item, according to Causey.
Still open are the two highest-value leftovers near SW 80th Avenue and SW 34th Place: a parcel owned by Hiram Marrero and Ana R. Sosa, appraised at $263,676, and a parcel owned by the Perales family and a special-needs trust, appraised at $612,056. The Marrero family already sold a different piece of the project.
Causey said some of the remaining parcels have not closed yet. That can mean an owner turned down the county’s offer, the two sides talked and could not settle on a price, or the owner has not responded. It does not mean the county is taking the land now. If a purchase still cannot be completed, a subsequent legal case could take a year or more and might delay that stretch of the road or prompt staff to consider a design change.
The middle stretch, just north of West Port High School to south of SR 40, remains the long-term gap in the corridor. County engineers have described that segment as still in design, with construction further out than the pieces already under contract.
The county has said the wider 80th/70th Avenue route is meant to accommodate growth from communities on the west side of Ocala, cut local traffic off from I-75, and provide safer access and more walking and biking space along the road.