Sanford weighs funding request for $200 million SR-417 connector project

Sanford leaders were weighing whether city taxpayers should help bankroll a roughly $200 million, two-mile connector to Orlando Sanford International Airport, a road county leaders say could pull traffic off East Lake Mary Boulevard and Ronald Reagan Boulevard. The Sanford City Commission was set to take up Seminole County’s request at a work session Monday, putting a local price tag on a project with countywide reach.

The Central Florida Expressway Authority first studied the connector in 2007, then shelved it for more than a decade. Seminole County asked CFX to revisit the idea in 2022 as traffic around the airport kept growing, and by spring 2023 the agency was studying a corridor from State Road 417 near the Seminole Toll Plaza northeast to East Lake Mary Boulevard near Red Cleveland Boulevard. CFX said the goal was to improve mobility, strengthen direct airport access, and better connect a growing population and economy to local plans.

By July 2025, CFX said the study had produced a preferred alternative, Alignment 2A, and the agency held a public hearing at the Sanford Civic Center. On Oct. 9, 2025, CFX voted to make Route 2A the preferred route after reviewing five possible paths. Agency officials said the alignment offered the best balance between airport access and limiting impacts to homes and the environment.

The funding fight intensified in February, when the CFX board unanimously approved an interlocal agreement with Seminole County. That agreement put the county in for $50 million. Seminole County then earmarked $25 million from its 2024 infrastructure sales tax on Feb. 24, with a second $25 million payment due between October 2027 and September 2028. CFX says that, based on current funding, construction is not expected to begin until no later than the end of December 2031.

Supporters argue the connector is needed because the airport district is growing and the current road network is already strained. CFX says the project is meant to reduce congestion on East Lake Mary Boulevard and Ronald Reagan Boulevard and provide direct access to the airport for residents, commuters and businesses that rely on SR 417. Seminole County Commissioner Jay Zembower has warned the area could become gridlocked without it.

But the project has also drawn resistance from homeowners who say the alignment could run through their properties, and from skeptics who question using tax dollars for a toll road that drivers would still have to pay to use. For Sanford, the decision now is whether that money buys traffic relief or amounts to a subsidy for a regional corridor that serves the airport, nearby businesses and a fast-growing north Seminole County gateway.