Decorative Crosswalks on King Street

The final push is on to get the revitalized King Street streetscape completed by the end of the construction season. But the $10.9-million project isn’t running out of time. Favorable weather and contractor efficiencies have meant the work west of Gaukel Street was completed faster this year than the first phase was last year.

Crews closed King Street west of Benton Street earlier this week to complete an entrance feature that was bumped last year by tight Oktoberfest timelines. The work will include a decorative paving-stone crosswalk and a concrete roadway similar to the one already in front of city hall.

That section of King Street will be closed until Labour Day.

Meanwhile, work on the final block of streetscaping continues further down between Water and Francis streets. Crews have finished the sidewalks and trees have been planted. They’re working to install paving stones before the road work is wrapped up. There will be an entrance feature at that end of the street similar to the one going in at King and Benton. That should be finished by the end of September.

The city is considering adding the same decorative crosswalks throughout the redeveloped street, but hasn’t made a decision on that yet. Those can be installed after the final layer of asphalt is down. The plan was to finish the final layer in 2011, but the work has been accelerated. If nothing alters the pace, it could be finished this year.

The street reconstruction is part of a larger push by the city to bring more traffic and business to the core. The city’s façade improvement grant program in the core has already seen 13 storefronts upgraded, with another three underway and eight approved but not yet started. They’re in addition to a number of businesses — Coffee Culture, Laurier Optical, Crabby Joes and Shoppers Drug Mart — which completed similar improvements outside of the program. Other large downtown projects, including the University of Waterloo’s school of pharmacy, Wilfrid Laurier University’s graduate school of social work and a redevelopment of the former Lang Tannery, are also part of the city’s push to revitalize the core.

Source: TheRecord.com

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