Northlake Boulevard Is Being Rebuilt From Both Ends at Once

On October 1, the Beeline Highway reconstruction at the west end of Northlake Boulevard reached day 929 of its contract. The new I-95 interchange contract at the east end of Northlake runs 929 contract days in total. One project is halfway through, and FDOT lists November 2026 as the start of the other. The Florida Department of Transportation expects both to finish in late 2029.

So for the next three years, anyone in Palm Beach Gardens who uses Northlake to get to I-95, the Turnpike or the western communities will be driving through a work zone at one end or the other. The headline numbers are lane counts: a fourth through lane under I-95, and a six-lane Beeline. The changes people will feel first, every day, are smaller. A median opening closes, a left turn doubles, and a direct left becomes a U-turn. The Northlake of 2029 is being drawn around different turns, and some of those turns have already moved.

Two projects, two clocks

FDOT's two sites for the I-95 job don't give the same finish date. The district construction page says late 2029. The older design-phase site still says spring 2029 and puts the cost at $55,039,186. The construction page is the current one, and on that schedule the work runs through the summers of 2027, 2028 and 2029.

At the west end, the turns have already moved

The Beeline intersection is where Northlake's new layout shows up first. It sits just outside the city limits. FDOT's October 2026 progress update describes three changes in place now:

• Traffic heading northwest on Beeline to eastbound Northlake has a temporarily shifted route. Drivers can still turn right at the intersection to get onto eastbound Northlake. FDOT expects the current setup to reopen in Winter 2026.
• Northlake's lanes in both directions are shifted at the intersection, and U-turns there are closed in both directions until Winter 2026.
• Phase 1 has moved northwest-bound Beeline traffic west so crews can widen the outside, mainly between the Turnpike overpass and Northlake. Gravity wall work and the rebuild of Northlake itself continue this fall.

FDOT's Beeline FAQ explains how two familiar left turns will work when the job is done. Drivers going west on Northlake who want southbound Beeline, and drivers on southbound Beeline who want eastbound Northlake, will keep going west on Northlake to a signalized U-turn past the intersection. Eastbound Northlake traffic will stop at a signal while those U-turns go through. The same FAQ says Beeline goes from two lanes each way to three, and the proposed speed limit for the six-lane road is 45 mph, down from today's 55.

That makes a wider road with a slower posted speed and fewer direct lefts. Drivers who use Beeline as a quick link to the Turnpike or Blue Heron will need a different routine.

This intersection has been closed once already. In August 2025, Palm Beach County and FDOT shut the Northlake and Beeline intersection around the clock so CSX could replace railroad track and upgrade signals. The closure ended at 10:45 a.m. on Saturday, August 9, a day ahead of schedule. The county's page for that closure still lists live traffic cameras along western Northlake at Ancient Tree Drive/Bay Hill, Avenir Drive, Coconut Boulevard and Grapeview Boulevard. Those cameras are a quick way to check the western stretch before leaving home.

At the east end, the side streets get redesigned

The I-95 project is officially an interchange improvement at Exit 77. FDOT designed it for traffic it expects in 2043. Its planners project that Northlake will fall below acceptable service levels by 2040 if nothing changes. The ramp work is the largest single piece. The changes along Northlake are the ones drivers will notice on local errands. According to FDOT's project description, the job includes:

1. Longer dedicated off-ramp lanes from northbound and southbound I-95 to Northlake, with triple left turns and triple right turns at the end of each ramp.
2. A new eastbound through lane on Northlake from about Dania Drive to about Sandtree Drive.
3. A new westbound through lane from about Roan Lane to Military Trail.
4. Dual left turns from southbound Keating Drive onto eastbound Northlake.
5. Dual left turns from westbound Northlake into the Garden Towne Square shopping center.
6. Closing the eastbound left-turn median opening on Northlake at Roan Lane.
7. New sidewalks and bike lanes on Northlake.

The district construction page adds milling and repaving of both I-95 and Northlake, a wrong-way driving detection system on the widened exit ramps, more signal and drainage work, and new lighting, signs and pavement markings.

Read together, items four through six say where the trouble spots are. Garden Towne Square gets a second left-turn lane because so many cars turn in there. Keating Drive gets doubled lefts onto eastbound Northlake for the same reason. The Roan Lane median opening goes away entirely, so anyone who uses that eastbound left today will need another route once it closes. The project limits run west to Military Trail and east to Silverthorne Drive. That puts most of the Northlake errand corridor between those two points inside the work zone.

The rules behind the road

Northlake Boulevard is a county road, even where it runs through the city. Palm Beach County controls its lanes, speed limits and signals, as the city's Western Northlake traffic page explains. The two interchanges and the Beeline belong to the state. So a question about a signal on Northlake goes to a different agency than a question about a lane closure on a ramp. For the I-95 job, FDOT lists Meredith Cruz as community outreach specialist, at [email protected] or (561) 589-9584. The Beeline project has its own outreach contact, Silvana Ojeda, at 561-905-0167.

The city has one project of its own on a parallel route, and it finishes long before the state's. Palm Beach Gardens has been building a two-way bicycle track on the south side of Burns Road, separated from car traffic by a concrete curb. Construction started April 13, and the city expects it to run through late November 2026. During the first phase, the city said at least one lane would stay open between Military Trail and the signal at the Weiss School. By the time I-95 crews are settled in at Northlake, Burns Road should be clear of its own cones.

Three things worth setting up before the first cones

Lane closure plans can change with the weather and from one construction phase to the next, so a route that worked in November may not work in March. Three tools keep up with that:

• FL511, or dialing 511, shows live conditions on I-95, the Turnpike and the Beeline before you leave.
• FDOT District 4's lane closure listings for Palm Beach County, updated weekly, show scheduled closures for both the Beeline and the I-95 jobs.
• Palm Beach Gardens' Notify Me alerts carry city traffic notices, including updates on Burns Road and other city work.

The next fixed date on the calendar is Winter 2026. That is when FDOT expects to reopen the shifted Beeline-to-eastbound-Northlake connection and bring back U-turns at that intersection. After that, both projects work toward the same late-2029 finish.

If you own a home near the Northlake corridor and want to know how three years of construction might affect your timing, or how buyers are likely to see your location once the new turns are in, John Reynolds & Randi Binder can walk you through it discreetly. Request a free home valuation and we'll review your property with the 2029 road plans in hand.