About 50 people attended the town’s Centennial (50th) Street Design Open House Feb. 27, an indication of strong interest in the street’s redevelopment.
Designs presented throughout the evening resulted in “very positive” feedback, according to planner Kim Devlin.
“That (turnout) was probably better than what we expected based on previous turnout for some of the other public sessions that we’ve had for this particular project, so we’re very happy with that,” she said.
The purpose of the open house, which Devlin said attracted mainly land and business owners from the affected area, was to share information with the public about the town’s current conceptual design for the street, and to obtain feedback on what people feel should and shouldn’t be included.
According to Devlin, that information is needed before moving into more detailed design.
“This is a draft-design phase,” she said. “Once we’ve got feedback from the public, we’re going to be moving into a more detailed design phase, so they’ll work on fleshing out more of the details and how it’s all going to work and what it’s going to look like a little bit more.”
The open house was held in the council chambers of the Municipal Government Building, where large display boards showed possible improvements to sidewalks, streets, landscaping and parking areas.
They also showed preliminary analysis and evaluation from the project’s early stages, and imagery of what the street could look like in the future.
“There was a section of imagery that the steering committee, along with some of the information from the public sessions that were held last summer, combined to get ideas of what the street could be like,” said Devlin. “(That) provided the designers a starting place that they could move forward with in order to create something that was going to create that vision.”
Devlin expects to receive more feedback as the result of questionnaires that were handed out at the open house.
Tendering for the project could take place later this year, she said, with construction beginning as early as spring or summer of next year.