College Avenue work progresses

FAYETTEVILLE — College Avenue, known for its curb cuts, parking lots and establishments ranging from strip clubs to scooter stores, eventually could have much more of a “downtown” feel.

City officials started last year on the stretch from Maple to North streets. Plans included widening sidewalks, adding lights and decorative trees and changing curb and gutter placement.

Last spring, city staff proposed rezoning that same stretch. Resident outcry over the possibility of student-occupied apartments looming over neighborhoods brought the idea back to the drawing board.

A fancy pedestrian crossing known as a high-intensity activated crosswalk, or HAWK, beacon, will make it easier to walk across four lanes of 28,000 cars per day between Rebecca Street and Trenton Boulevard. The city just put out requests for submissions from artists to create a mural along the 1,654-square-foot old retaining wall between Prospect

and Cleburn streets.

The construction, crosswalk and mural all should wrap in early November. Also, a Planning Commission subcommittee has been working on the rezoning proposal, which has shifted to a larger conversation about the city’s development code.

MEN AT WORK

Work on the west side of College Avenue between Maple and North streets started in April. Construction has been a bit more challenging than the east side, which finished in January, but the project has remained on schedule, Transportation Services Director Terry Gulley said.

The west side is hillier than the east side. Plus, Scull Creek runs beneath College Avenue between Trenton Boulevard and Rebecca Street, and the culvert that carries the water through had to be extended, Gulley said.

City crews should finish the bulk of the construction by mid-October. Some “dress-up” work, such as getting wires into conduits and replacing some utility poles, should finish in November.

Part of the new sidewalk runs between two retaining walls. The original plan was to build a new retaining wall behind the new sidewalk, but the poor soil and proximity to structures were concerning, City Engineer Chris Brown said.

Digging up all of the ground behind the wall could have created an unstable foundation, Brown said. Instead, crews only dug a little bit behind the old retaining wall, installed the sidewalk so it goes up and over the mound of soil, and put a smaller retaining wall on the other side.

Money for the project comes from the Transportation Bond Fund, which voters approved in 2006. So far this year the city has spent $432,530 and has about $160,000 in the queue for purchase orders on material. Brown estimated the final

NWA Democrat-Gazette/ANDY SHUPE Fayetteville Transportation Division workers assemble a retaining wall Thursday along College Avenue. The city has begun hiring an artist to create a mural on the retaining wall between Cleburn and Prospect streets to be completed by the first of...