The vote may be in, but construction will not begin until 2014.
The Auburn City Council voted to move forward with the Renew Opelika Road Corridor plan during the Council's last meeting Aug. 20. The first area of construction is in the final design stages.
"Renew Opelika Road was a plan that came out of our comprehensive plan," said Justin Steinmann, the city of Auburn's principal planner. "It was really recognizing a need for knowing that Opelika Road is a corridor that was in decline."
The first phase of construction is the stretch of Opelika Road between Gay and Ross Streets.
"The remaining sections will be built over time, a lot of it depends on how much money is available from year to year to make that construction happen," Steinmann said. "There's not a firm timeline, you know, we are doing the Corridor in five years. It's more we are going to see what our funds are year-to-year and work incrementally as we can."
Steinmann said the plan encompasses the entire length of Opelika Road from Gay Street to the Auburn city limits and includes areas such as the Village Mall, Aspen Heights and North Dean Road. He said the plan is fundamentally about revitalizing the area through improving the aesthetics of the road with street trees, sidewalks and medians.
"So as far as the street-scape, the part that the city will be doing, redevelopment is occurring right now," Steinmann said. "We are asking people to plant street trees and other things like that."
Steinmann said the city wants to redevelop and reinvest in existing properties to make new investments on the corridor.
"Another thing we have talked about is corridor identity," Steinmann said. "You know, like downtown has an identity. Downtown Merchants helps promote Downtown, but there's no similar organization that does that for Opelika Road."
Two citizens brought concerns of the project to the Council during the Aug. 20 meeting.
"There's no plans for U-turns," said Allen Patterson of Village Photography. "If somebody was traveling down Opelika Road and they needed to turn left into a business across the street from me, they might have to go further and loop through Byron's parking lot in order to come back to that business. There are a lot of things that could go wrong when that happens."
Patterson raised concerns over medians impeding delivery trucks' ability to park in turn lanes on Opelika Road to deliver product to area businesses. He said he feels people are about (what does that mean?) the traffic issues that a median may create in that area.
"But we don't want to impede ongoing businesses like [Village Photography] and others that have been there for years and years and years," said Mayor Bill Ham. "So, going forward we want to ensure the viability of our existing businesses. And make sure that we don't do anything to negatively impact them."
Forrest Cotten, director of planning, said citizens have concerns about medians and he feels the planning department is sensitive to businesses' concerns.
"Where the rubber meets the road is when we actually get into the design phase of the project," Cotten said. "I think certainly we see greater opportunities for medians in some locations without question."
Construction will begin in 2014.
"I think we are extraordinarily sensitive and we'll be reaching out to those businesses directly," Cotten said. "And so there won't be anything done out there that folks aren't aware of, and certainly that would negatively impact businesses along there. I think everybody's on the same page as far as that's concerned."
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