GO Roads Paving Program — Palm Bay, Florida

GO Roads is Palm Bay's citywide street repaving program, paid for by a $150 million bond that Palm Bay voters approved in November 2018 and repaid from property taxes.

The ballot question was Referendum No. 2: Bonds for Road Improvement Projects in Palm Bay. Referendum No. 2 authorized the City of Palm Bay to issue GO bonds up to $150,000,000, repaid from annual property taxes. A general obligation bond is city debt backed by ad valorem taxes, which is why it needed a public vote, and the city called GO bonds the most cost-effective bonds to issue.

The Public Works Projects page lays out the original plan: five phases over an eight-year construction period, each one vetted by the Infrastructure Advisory and Oversight Board before going to Palm Bay City Council for final approval. Palm Bay officials held the kickoff event in Unit 41 on October 11, 2019, to mark the start of GO Roads paving.

The bond was never meant only for asphalt. The city's ballot glossary on the GO Bond page defines ancillary facilities as sidewalks and trails, streetlights and underground pipes related to the roadway, and Palm Bay Public Works schedules stormwater pipe replacement ahead of road bond paving (Public Works Projects).

The money was borrowed in pieces. Palm Bay's fiscal 2024 annual financial report says the GO Road Program Fund accounts for General Obligation Bonds, Series 2019, 2021 and 2023, and that at the end of fiscal 2024 the Palm Bay GO Road Program Fund still held $64.5 million in restricted net position.

By October 27, 2025, Palm Bay Public Works reported that GO Roads had resurfaced about 60% of the 791 miles of Palm Bay roadway, up from 51% in February 2024.

The city's fiscal 2023 report counted 403 miles or 51% as of February 2024, and its fiscal 2024 report counted 440 miles or 56% of the 791 miles of roadway as of September 2024. The Infrastructure Advisory and Oversight Board minutes of October 27, 2025 put the total at about 60% of the 791 miles of Palm Bay roadway. The Public Works Projects page still shows an undated figure of over 418 miles, which falls between the two 2024 counts, so each number is given here with its own date.

Phase by phase, the fiscal 2024 report says Palm Bay Public Works had completed all of Phases 1, 2 and 3, with Phase 4 projects headed to bid in fiscal 2025. Note 7 of the fiscal 2023 report lists the GO Bond Road Program with $88,564,331 spent to date and $61,435,669 of remaining commitment at September 30, 2023.

The first three GO Roads phases covered areas from Unit 41 and Garvey Road to Port Malabar Boulevard, Palm Bay Colony and the Country Club units.

The Public Works unit table also lists Phase 2 work on Port Malabar Road from Palm Bay Road to Babcock Street, Emerson Drive from Minton Road to C-1, Palm Bay Colony and Kirby Industrial, Driskell Heights, Knecht Road, and Port Malabar from Babcock Street to U.S. 1. One unit number differs between city pages: the GO Bond page gives Unit 41 and Eldron as 11.73 miles, against 11.21 on the projects table.

Major roads were added along the way. In July 2024 Palm Bay City Council approved $4,000,000 in GO Road funds to pave Emerson Drive from Malabar Road to Waco Boulevard (Council minutes, July 18, 2024), and in June 2022 the Unit 30 contract went to a Vero Beach paving contractor for $11,625,262 (Council minutes, June 16, 2022).

The city's GIS map shows a Palm Bay residence's unit as a yellow filled number, which can then be matched to the GO Roads phase tables.

Palm Bay Public Works lists most GO Roads paving by unit rather than by street name. The Public Works Projects page tells residents to search an address on the city GIS map and look for the yellow filled number to identify the unit, then read the phase table and the color-coded phase map below it.

The remaining units are listed on the GO Bond page. Phase 4 groups Units 6, 44, 45, 50 and 55, about 96.7 miles at an estimated $13,838,501. Phase 5 covers Units 26, 38, 39 and 40 (19.39 miles); Melbourne Poultry Colony and Units 21, 7, 8, 29, 28, 19, 10, 9, 36, 12 and 16 (223.71 miles, estimated at $37,673,563); and Unit 49 (28.4 miles at $16,153,422).

Those lists were already shifting in 2025. At the April 28, 2025 board meeting the city said the City of Palm Bay had allocated funds for the first four of the five phases and Phase 5 was not funded, with Phase 4 contracts soon to be awarded for Units 22, 37, 57, 26 and 39 cul-de-sacs and bids planned for Units 44, 45, 50 and 55. The five-year capital plan for fiscal 2025 to 2029 nonetheless scheduled $27,268,338 in GO Road Bond paving for fiscal year 2026: Units 29, 36 and 49, Malabar Road from C-10 to I-95, Jupiter Road from Garvey to San Filippo, and Melbourne Poultry Colony.

Palm Bay paused GO Roads in 2025 after City Council voted to suspend future paving contracts, and staff planned a new citywide pavement condition survey to guide how the remaining bond money is spent.

The suspension surfaced at the September 22, 2025 Infrastructure Advisory and Oversight Board meeting, where the chair reported that Palm Bay City Council had voted to suspend any future GO Roads paving contracts. The chair sought board consensus to recommend a Pavement Condition Index before any future contracts; he put the cost between $150,000 and $200,000, not paid from bond money, and the Public Works Director said the new survey would be compared with the last one, done in 2017.

A month later the director gave the board the full history. The October 27, 2025 minutes record that the GO Roads program began in 2017 with a Pavement Management Plan by Trans Map, paving began in 2019 and the program paused in 2025. Trans Map had scored every Palm Bay road segment from 0 to 100 after driving it with video and infrared equipment.

The plan going forward is data first. Per the same minutes, the new condition scores will be combined with traffic study data to decide the best use of the remaining funds, and Palm Bay Public Works expected to have a project ready in the first quarter of 2026. For Palm Bay units not yet paved, the Phase 4 and Phase 5 rows on the GO Bond page are labeled estimates, not a schedule.

Palm Bay owners repay GO Roads through a separate debt millage on the property tax bill, and the program uses five treatments from rejuvenation to full reconstruction depending on how worn a street is.

For the first $50 million issue, the GO Bond page showed an estimated millage rate of 0.8296, about $82.96 a year on $100,000 of taxable value non-school, first billed in November 2019, with the note that the amount would rise as more bonds were issued. The charge follows taxable value, so exemptions lower it and wholly exempt institutions pay nothing; the separate Palm Bay stormwater assessment is not replaced by it.

Palm Bay Public Works chooses the treatment street by street (Public Works Projects). Mill and pave grinds off the old surface and lays 1.5 or 2 inches of new asphalt. Thin lift repairs cracks and potholes and adds a 1.5-inch overlay. Full depth reclamation pulverizes the old asphalt and base, mixes in cement, emulsion and water, and compacts it into a new base before paving. Full reconstruction removes the road down to subgrade and rebuilds it with an 8-inch base and 2 inches of asphalt.

Rejuvenation is the maintenance step for Palm Bay streets paved in the last few years: the GO Bond page says the Reclamite treatment on 1 to 5 year old roads improves the durability and life of the pavement by 4 to 6 years. Spending is watched by the Infrastructure Advisory and Oversight Board, which meets at Palm Bay City Hall, 120 Malabar Road SE.

Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the City of Palm Bay Public Works GO Roads pages and board minutes.