High Side Project Nears the Finish Line as Holidays Approach

I have been a vocal sup­port­er of the so-called High Side project since it was first pro­posed. Once con­struc­tion final­ly start­ed in late April, it has been a slow, often painful expe­ri­ence for down­town shop­pers, and par­tic­u­lar­ly for busi­ness owners. 

But over the last month or so, as work final­ly start­ed to wind down and the final prod­uct began to take shape, I have seen a much more pos­i­tive vibe down­town. Now that folks can see what the fin­ished project looks like, it seems a new opti­mism and excite­ment are swirling about on Main Street. 

This after­noon, I took a walk down­town and also viewed the progress from the roof of our office in the his­toric McEldowney Building. Although much of the hard­scape has been in place for months, it seems the final touches—particularly the beau­ti­ful black-iron railings—are what bring it all to life for me.

It was touch-and-go on Main Street today as the street was being black­topped. The street was closed in seg­ments while inter­sec­tions were paved. Paving should be fin­ished this after­noon or tomorrow. 

According to the lat­est update from the city, the final brick­work will take place ear­ly next week, along with the remain­ing strip­ing, includ­ing park­ing spaces and direc­tion­al arrows.

Next will come the final touch­es: new trash cans, bench­es, and flower box­es. Although not stat­ed in the update, I assume this will also include rein­stalling the white globes on the dec­o­ra­tive lamp posts and relight­ing them, as well as installing dec­o­ra­tive cov­ers for the drain pipes in the high side walls. 

The city says at least one lane of Main Street will be open at all times tomor­row as strip­ing takes place, though it appears the yel­low strip­ing has already been com­plet­ed. Parking spaces and direc­tion­al arrows will be paint­ed next week. 

The final step will be cre­at­ing a punch list of things that need to be cor­rect­ed or com­plet­ed. Assuming that goes well, the project is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed by December 1, just in time for the Christmas parade and hol­i­day shop­ping. Won’t that be nice? 

Until then, know that down­town is still open and easy pedes­tri­an access is avail­able to all shops on Main Street. Tomorrow and Saturday, down­town will host the Holiday Open House. Many mer­chants are offer­ing sales, spe­cial events, and more this weekend. 

This event kicks off the hol­i­day shop­ping sea­son, which many down­town shop­keep­ers rely on to turn a profit—some stores gen­er­ate half or more of their annu­al rev­enue dur­ing the weeks lead­ing up to Christmas. Let’s turn out and sup­port them; they have endured a rough year for the sake of their own liveli­hoods and for our town.