Photo courtesy of WCIA, this is a picture of a Decatur, Illinois streescape
Last month Bloomington City Manager Tim Gleason spoke publicly about a potential $25 million to $30 million Downtown Streetscape project. Among other possibilities he mentioned an electric trolley system. We have heard a lot of talk about the project in the last few weeks but not another word about an electric trolley system.
The council heard a presentation and asked a number of questions about the project at a committee of the whole meeting last Monday night. And tonight the subject is on the agenda with council being asked to approve $750,000 for Conceptual Design for the project. The design would be funded by American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. The work would be done by Crawford, Murphy and Tilly (CMT) of Springfield.
CMT would develop a multi-year plan to implement recommendations from previous plans including the City’s 2015 Comprehensive Plan as well as the 2017 Downtown Bloomington Task Force Report. The Concept Design would result in the development of specific, phased projects with associated opinions of probable construction cost.
Gleason says, “This is about the true next step for Bloomington’s downtown.” “This is not a duplicate step. Again, this is the necessary next step. Tonight’s presentation will discuss how to build the downtown streetscape. This has never occurred. And past studies, while all a part of this, do not satisfy this critical architectural and engineering next step,” he added.
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According to Gleason, “Once the design study is completed the question will become to what degree. As an example, (will we) spend a few million to improve the downtown square or several million to improve the entire downtown and at what pace.”
For the purposes of this project downtown is defined as the inner “beltloop” (inside Highway US 51B [Madison Street and East Street] bounded to the north by Locust Street, and bounded to the south by Olive Street) as well as some of the surrounding areas west and east of the beltloop. Previous definitions of downtown have included the warehouse district. But that area is not included in the boundaries of this study.
The hiring process for the consultant began when the city issued a Request for Statement of Qualifications (RFQ) on July 9, 2021. A committee of City staff members from Administration, Economic and Community Development, Facilities, Procurement, and Public Works reviewed five responses.
The committee then interviewed three teams and determined CMTto be the most qualified firm to do the work. CMT was then asked to submit a proposal for scope and fees associated with the Downtown Streetscape Project.
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This project will take twelve months. Concept design work would start this month and wrap up in August 2023.
The conceptual design plan would include a summary of existing conditions, a streetscape concept plan, a utility management plan, a traffic concept plan, a US 51B concept plan, a pavement management plan, a historical clearances management plan, a program phasing plan, and opinions of probable costs.
Should the concept design plan be finalized then the highest priority actual streetscape construction project would have to compete with other projects for funding.
Those other projects might include projects like the general resurfacing of city streets, sidewalk and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ramp improvements, pavement preservation and IL Route 9 improvements on Market St. And those are just the planned transportation projects.
More importantly a streetscape construction project might be in direct competition for funding Phase Eight of the Locust Colton Sewer Project. That phase has not been designed at this time and construction funding has not been identified.
During the committee of the whole meeting council member Nick Becker asked the consultant what measurable data they had that downtown streetscape projects bring in business.
Chris Stritzel, the Project Principal for CMT replied that he wasn’t prepared to answer that question.
Becker quickly commented, “That’s disappointing.”
Perhaps the city should look into the answer to Becker’s question before proceeding.
