Sawgrass Interchange


The Sawgrass Interchange is a large highway interchange in Sunrise, Florida, United States.

History

The Sawgrass Interchange was built between 1986 and 1989. The interchange opened in late 1989. The interchange was constructed at a cost of $52 million. At the time of its opening, the interchange was the largest in Florida.
In 2023, there was widespread concern when a social media post, which erroneously claimed that one of the interchange's bridges was structurally unsound because of a visible gap, went viral. The Florida Department of Transportation inspected the bridge and found no structural defects; the "gap" was normal and intentionally constructed when the bridge was built in the 1980s, being the location of one of the bridge's expansion joints.

Description

The Sawgrass Interchange is a large stack interchange. It serves as the junction point for three major expressways in South Florida: Interstate 75, I-595, and State Road 869. SR 84 also travels through the interchange.
The interchange includes the respective western and southern terminuses of I-595 and SR 869, as well as the eastern terminus of Alligator Alley.

Design

The Sawgrass Interchange consists of several bridges and 70 bridge spans—all of which are made of precast segmental concrete; the bridge spans range from and were constructed with 1,366 precast box girder segments. The stack interchange occupies an area of approximately.