Seminole County breaks ground on $30 million Midway drainage project

Repeated flooding complaints in Midway finally moved from planning to construction as Seminole County Public Works broke ground on the first three phases of the Midway Drainage Improvement Project on March 25, 2026. Chairman and District 5 Commissioner Andria Herr led the ceremony, joined by county commissioners, project staff and residents who have pressed for drainage improvements for years.

County materials now place the work at more than $30 million in proposed improvements, backed by federal, state and local sources, including the County’s Penny Sales Tax. That is a larger price tag than earlier county materials, which had estimated the project at more than $26 million while it remained in design, a shift that reflects how the effort has grown as it moved toward construction.

For Midway homeowners and businesses, the stakes are practical. Seminole County says the project is meant to reduce flooding, improve water quality in the community and add sidewalk for pedestrian safety along Main Street. The county has framed the work as more than a drainage fix, describing it as an investment in flood mitigation, resiliency and infrastructure in a historic part of unincorporated Seminole County that has dealt with repeated storm-water problems.

Those problems have been documented for years. County meeting materials say flooding has long been a concern in Midway and surrounding areas, and that maintenance teams responded to repeated complaints after Tropical Storm Fay, Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Ian. A basin study later identified five areas for drainage-improvement concepts after using storm-water modeling to map the 100-year floodplain and assess flood-control service levels.

The project’s roots go back even farther. County records say a Midway Basin Drainage Inventory and Engineering Study dates to 1997, underscoring how long the community has been waiting for a comprehensive fix. The timeline in county documents shows a progression from early basin studies to a 2021 report, public meetings in 2023, and ARPA-funded design and land acquisition work in 2024 and 2025.

Seminole County’s 2024 ARPA Recovery Plan allocated $10 million to the Midway Stormwater Drainage project, and the 2025 plan said $8.8 million had already been expended. With construction now underway on the first three phases, county leaders face the next test: turning a decades-long promise into a system that keeps water off streets, protects property and gives Midway residents a more durable measure of relief when the next major storm arrives.