FAYETTEVILLE -- City engineers are seeking input as they begin redesigning a half-mile stretch of College Avenue between Maple and North streets.
The public will have a chance to review an initial concept for the street, which accommodates about 27,000 cars daily, during an open house 4-7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.
The College Avenue work will extend the improvements made between Maple and Rock streets in 2008 and 2009.
"College Avenue is the most important street in the city," Alderman Matthew Petty, chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, said Friday. "More than 40 percent of the community lives within a mile of it.
"If we expect the private sector to develop in a way that's better for the city, the city needs to do its part by reorganizing the street in a way that will support the type of development we want," Petty added.
The concept includes 10-foot-wide sidewalks along with streetlights and possibly tree wells.
Matt Casey, engineering design manager, said the city will work with AEP-Southwestern Electric Power to bury power lines.
A retaining wall on the east side of College, across from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, likely will come down. Casey said sections of a small retaining wall on College's west side, near Prospect Street, can be removed, but a larger wall in front of the Fayetteville Chiropractic Orthopedic & Sports Injury Clinic, 715 N. College Ave., will probably have to stay put, making the sidewalk narrower in some spots.
Terry Gulley, transportation services director, said he expects construction to cost about $2 million.
The project will be paid for through a $65.9 million sales-tax-backed bond program voters approved in 2006.
Bond money also was used to pay for the seven-block stretch of College Avenue between Rock and Maple streets. That work cost about $1.8 million, according to city records.
Casey said engineers will begin redesigning the six-block section from Maple Street to North Street after they take public input.
"We intend to have design and all easement acquisition done by end of this year and have it ready for the transportation division to begin construction by early next year," he said.
Construction likely will take all of 2016 -- if not longer -- Casey added.
Metro on 08/09/2015