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The Sunshine Skyway Bridge was once hailed as the most expensive single road project in Florida history. The new bridge, made necessary when a freighter slammed into the old bridge during a tropical storm on May 9, 1980, and finished in 1987, cost just more than $240 million.

Now there’s a new record. And it will be the most expansive, the most innovative and probably the most crucial project in Southwest Florida history.

Widening 30 miles of Interstate 75 from four lanes to six will cost just around $470 million — perhaps as much as $485 million. Almost $40 million is already spent. The go-ahead for the project to six-lane 30 miles of I-75 is Oct. 28, and it’s expected to be done by late 2010.

The approach is the brainchild of Stan Cann, state transportation secretary for Southwest Florida. A little more than a year-and-a-half ago, Cann met with his bosses in Tallahassee to pitch a new idea.

“Number one, we had the state growth management bill in which DOT got money; and number two, we had the $81 million earmark for 75 from Congress,” Cann said. “That was two big opportunities to do something. I tried to put together a number of different sources of money to get the biggest bang for the buck for the windfall plus what we had in the work program.”

What was in the work program was enough to pay for the project. The problem was that the funding wasn’t available until 2010. That means the project wouldn’t begin until then.

“The question was, can I put it all together in one contact right now and pay the contract each year we had it funded?” Cann said. “They said sure.”

That made the project into a design, build, finance deal, the first of its kind in Florida. The team that won the bid would be expected to do the work in three years and take payment over five years.

Previous state contracts divided projects into pieces. One firm bids the design work, another the construction, perhaps a third the inspection and oversight. Work could not begin until the state had the money, and each step waited until the previous step was finished.

Bidding the financing became possible when the Legislature adopted a so-called P3 bill, allowing state contracts for public-private partnerships. Contractors borrow the money and include the cost of financing in their bid. By getting the contract sooner, the state ducks the cost of future inflation.

Bob Janes, chairman of the Lee County commission, said he sees such public-private deals in the county’s future as well. He said with project funding tight — the county’s long-range building deficit exceeds $1 billion — it’s the only way work will get done.

“I don’t have any problem with it and I think it’s the direction we’re probably going to have to go,” he said. “The state doesn’t have the money nor does the county.”

Janes said not just roads but maybe even human services, affordable housing and other needs will be tackled that way.

“With the limited resources each entity has on its own it may be the only way we’re going to get it done,” he said.

Dave Loveland, chief transportation planner for the county, said commissioners will have a chance to move that way next month. With a nearly $500 million Colonial Boulevard project looming, he wants to know how the commissioners feel about it.

“There seem to be some pretty significant policy implications,” he said.

The size and nature of the project — elevated express lanes all the way from McGregor Boulevard to Metro Parkway — make it a likely candidate for toll financing, Loveland said. A P3 approach could allow private financing instead of a toll-supported public bond issue. A private company could design, build and even operate the new toll road. And if one county toll road goes private commissioners could go that way with existing tolls, like on the Cape Coral bridges and the Sanibel Causeway, too.

“It might come to that,” he said. “It’s up to them.”

Cann said timing can be the most important factor, like with an overloaded I-75 widened three years sooner.

“Most importantly the public gets the project done quicker,” Cann said.

At least most of the project. As originally envisioned the project would have been 35 miles, extending north all the way to State Road 82. It also included a new Daniels Parkway interchange. But when that project was bid the low offer was close to $550 million. Bids ranged to more than $650 million.

“Of course I wish we could be doing the entire 35 miles,” Cann admitted. “I don’t know why they bid so much when they knew how much money we had.”

Cann is still excited about the project, however. He said the approach is simple, but made possible only by the P3 legislation and the new project cash.

“For me to come up with the concept it has to be simple,” he laughed. “But it’s all good stuff.”