Main Street sidewalk work to begin soon

Chronicle Staff

Published: Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Acting as chairwoman, Tanya Olson welcomed all to the Custer Community Improvement Committee (CCIC) meeting last Thursday, March 19, at Custer City Hall. Before the group took a break from meeting last year, Matt Friedel was chairmen. But to avoid conflict of interest due to the fact that he works for Wyss Associates, which is one of the consultants for TIF #4 (goes towards downtown improvments), Friedel stepped down and gave Olson the lead until members elect new officers. Since meeting for the last five years, Rex Harris, city liaison, said that progress has really been made the last two years. “Perhaps that is a result of the TIF. We seemed to have come together because we have a little money where we can start putting things together that are important,” he said. Friedel agreed.  “It is exciting to see some of the projects we have been working on come together. We have lists and lists of projects we want to see happening,” he said.  As of now the committee is in the final stages of putting together the financials to know where they will be. “We set a top limit of $3 million of the TIF to go to improvements to Custer. We don’t think we will ever get to that. As of now we are looking at somewhere between $900,000 and $1 million. If we have a crazy run on development and land sales we could gain a lot of that back,” said Harris. Once the finances are finalized, the project plan will be finalized. The project plan right now, Harris said, is downtown—4th Street to about 10th Street—from there, Harris said, the project would move  from 4th Street to Hwy. 385. “The project plan involves some sidewalk widening, some antique lighting and beautification, such as reconstruction of Way Park,” said Harris. He also mentioned that he would like to see the project go up 5th Street to Harney with the antique lighting.  “We will have to see how that shakes out. It is a dollar thing,” said Harris. As soon as the project is planned, in place and approved, Harris said bid taking will begin. “I expect the sidewalk construction will begin this spring and last through till fall,” he said. “There is a chance we could start doing somethings with the TIF this fall,” Harris said. The board has until the fall of 2012 to complete the project. “We can do all this work relatively easy without impacting all of the businesses downtown. That is the intent—to do as much work as we can during the spring and the fall. When the tourist season comes in the summer we plan to work on areas that won’t impact the shopping and tourism,” Harris said. The financials for the plan should be back within 30 days, said Harris. It will be either May or June when the TIF money will be available to construction, he added.  Right now Harris is doing an assessment on sidewalks in Custer. People with sidewalks not up to code will have to fix them or do whatever it takes to get them up to snuff. Harris was asked if it is typically a whole block of sidewalk that needs to be fixed or is it business by business. “Typically it isn’t a whole block,” Harris replied. “Most of the time it is just the sidewalk right in front of a business. We aren’t necessarily telling a business to fix the entire sidewalk in front of their business, just the part that is damaged.” Harris went on to say that if a business goes out and gets a new sidewalk put in, that sidewalk will have to have a conduit in place so work won’t be delayed on the antique lighting.  “Some business owners will walk and look down and think that nothing is wrong with their sidewalks. What we need from a sidewalk is for it to slope down from the building. If we don’t have sidewalks that slope towards the street, those sidewalks will constantly be icy during the winter,” he said. Harris said he has roughly finished assessing from 4th Street to 8th Street on Main Street. He has the list of all the businesses and what parts of their sidewalks need to be fixed. The required sidewalk improvements aren’t a part of the TIF, Harris said. That is why the business owners have to pay for the adjustments. “I don’t care how the businesses get their sidewalks up to code. They don’t have to go through the city. If the businesses are interested to develop a petition they can bring that petition to the city and the city can establish an assessment district,” Harris said.   Mike Nielsen asked why planning of the antique lights wasn’t first. “It seems like it would save a lot of time to figure out where the lights will be going first instead of chopping up sidewalks to install the lights,” he said. “It might even save us some money. I think the first step should be figuring out where the lights are going to go,” he said.  Harris replied that it isn’t necessary to know where all the lights are going. “We can just go in and sawcut to put the lights in,” he said. As of now the plan is to have five lights per block—three on one side, two on other, then reverse that for the next block, Harris said.  “It isn’t neccessary just yet to know where the lights will be going because the light locations might have to shift to clear an awning,” Harris said.  Whatever the option the committee goes with, Olson said the committee is all about getting the best use out of the money. “We want to get the most bang for our buck,” said Olson. “We want do a project downtown that will benefit a lot of people. That is how we came up with the lighting and sidewalk. We would like to see Custer Main Street cleaned up a bit.” Also discussed at the meeting was the look of downtown Custer. Cherish Baker from Baker’s Bakery and Cafe told the committee her plans of reinventing her cafe front.  Nielsen of Custer Do It Best showed sketches he has been working on for the front of her bakery. Nielsen said he would be glad to sketch out an idea for any store front in Custer at no charge. The goal of the committee is to provide some character to the businesses downtown. The CCIC meetings are open to everyone. The meetings are held to find out what business owners of Custer and residents would like to see in Custer.   The next meeting is set for Tuesday, April 16, at 6 p.m.