Wednesday, May 8, 2024–9:22 p.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
City of Rome officials are looking at cost estimates for a phased approach to the streetscape project in the River District.
$2 million was included in the 2017 special purpose, local option sales tax package for the streetscape. However, due to rising costs, the latest estimate is $6.9 million, which includes $3.2 million for the conversion from above-ground to underground power lines and the upgrading of wiring in some of the older buildings.
City Engineer Aaron Carroll told the public works, traffic, transit, and trails committee Wednesday that he has been studying options and suggested that the city could start with phase II of the project, which would be West Third Street. He has estimated that the total cost at right around $3 million. $1.7 million of that would be for the underground utility relocation.
“This basically gets the power underground along West Third, Carroll said. “The streetscape can wait a while because we certainly do not want to go in there and start messing with all of that while Georgia Power is in there doing what they need to do.”
City Manager Sammy Rich told the committee that the progress on the NOVA project also plays a factor.
“We’ve got the contractor out there working now,” he said. “We’re trying to align so we don’t have to go back later and tear out what somebody else could have done on the front end. So that really shapes this idea that we go to phase II first, so we can coordinate.”
However, downtown business owner Nedra Manners believes the priority should be Fifth Avenue.
“I appreciate the fact that they are trying to make this affordable and I understand the issue about Georgia Power, but we need to see something down there,” she said. “When I opened my business we were told that someone was going to get started after the first of the year, and that’s been almost every year.
The plans for Fifth Avenue include two 12-foot lanes with angled parking and wider concrete sidewalks. The realignment of the Avenue A intersection for a mini roundabout is also being considered.
Rome City Commissioner Harry Brock would also like to see the Fifth Avenue phase get the nod, noting that the current NOVA plan has all the storefronts facing the river.
“If you are standing on the sidewalk on West Third, you’re looking at a surface parking lot, an underground parking lot, or a garage parking lot,” he said. “All of the stuff that we had control of as a city, as a TAD, so that’s what we ended up with. You go on Fifth Avenue; you have storefronts from the bridge all the way down there. You have a lively street.
Carroll told the committee that he would go back and get a cost estimate that focuses more on Fifth Avenue.
Committee chair Jamie Doss would like to have some kind of discussions with Georgia Power regarding the cost of the utility relocation while Commissioner Randy Quick would like for the committee to get an update on the Nova project from the developers to see the latest architectural plans.
