|
New sidewalk, road project
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · April 03, 2014
The city and school district will together pay for a new sidewalk to connect pedestrians on Orange Street with West Branch Middle School.
The project is estimated to cost between $40,000 and $45,000 and will include a painted crosswalk across Orange Street, a 345-foot-long sidewalk from Orange Street that runs along the east side of North Maple to the northeast corner of WBMS, and a possible 64-foot sidewalk that branches eastward toward what is called the “kindergarten playground.”
As part of the project, the city will also make improvements to North Maple Street.
The project is slated to begin about the third week of April and wrap up about mid-May.
The West Branch Community Board of Education approved an agreement with the city on the project at its Feb. 10 meeting and also agreed to pay $18,000 of the cost after the project’s completion. The city, at its March 3 meeting, approved the agreement with the school to build the sidewalk and pay the rest of the cost.
LL Pelling Co. will do the street and curb work. To help reduce total costs, the public works department will put in the sidewalk and other concrete work, Public Works Director Matt Goodale said.
The city also plans to put a new layer of asphalt on North Maple, which will reach “a little bit” into the school’s parking lot, City Administrator Matt Muckler said.
The five-foot-wide sidewalk would require narrowing North Maple Street by three feet — from about 21 feet to 18 feet — because a city water plant building sits just a few feet away from the North Maple curb right now, Goodale said.
At the city council meeting, Council member Colton Miller asked about building a new sidewalk to WBMS when the school district plans to tear down the building in possibly as little as two or three years.
Muckler said the sidewalk would remain and might even get more use.
“Even if the middle school goes away, this becomes the front door of the elementary school,” the city administrator said.
The school’s 15-year master facilities plan puts a parking lot in place of WBMS and builds an addition to the elementary school’s multi-purpose room, moving offices to that end of the west wing. Buses and parents would then drop children off there instead of on Oliphant Street where they do now.
Muckler noted that the city plans to complete sidewalk work on Oliphant Street during the next fiscal year. That sidewalk now reaches from Orange Street northward to Crestview Drive; the new section will run from Crestview Drive almost to North Downey Street.
“That’s our big sidewalk project for next year,” he told the school board.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
