North Little Rock and the North Little Rock School District will share the cost of improvements to Main Street next to North Little Rock High School, according to an informal interlocal agreement the City Council approved Monday.
The shared, $1.05 million project will upgrade a 900-foot stretch of Main Street between West 22nd Street and Pershing Boulevard, which will include a wider, distinctly marked pedestrian crosswalk to connect the renovated high school, at 101 W. 22nd St., with a new student parking lot across Main Street. The project includes streetlights, pedestrian signals, the addition of a pedestrian island, sidewalks, curbing and an expanded right of way.
The city's portion of the cost will be $601,850, and the school district's share will be $447,415, according to the agreement approved 7-0 by the City Council. Alderman Maurice Taylor was absent.
"It's been a great team effort in putting this all together," Mayor Joe Smith said.
The crosswalk will be marked on either side by elevated, bronze statues of "Charging Wildcats," the high school's mascot. The city purchased the statues for $13,000 from a design mold created for a high school in another state. The sculptures arrived last week.
Alderman Linda Robinson questioned the purchase, saying that neither she nor Taylor, both from Ward 2, were aware of the purchase when asked about it by constituents. She questioned the benefit to the city.
"I think they do enhance the crosswalk," City Attorney Jason Carter said. "Whether they're appropriate or not [to purchase] is up to the council."
"It's probably too late for that because they've already been purchased," Robinson said.
Robinson brought the matter up again later in the meeting, saying that aldermen "should have been notified and should have been able to vote on that."
Smith answered that he "made the decision" and was able to receive a "good price" at the time they came available.
"I think I had the authority to do so," Smith said. "If you're going to try to get a rise out of me, I'm not going to let that happen."
The project is separate from the City Council's approval in March of a plan to re-engineer and repave Main Street between the viaduct at 13th Street and the high school at 22nd Street for an estimated $690,000.
Metro on 05/12/2015