The Williams City Council last week approved a contract with Bennett Engineering Services to complete a design concept for the E Street Improvement project.
The design will build on the 2014 Downtown Revitalization and Mobility Plan, which included a review of what was needed then to bring the main corridor through the downtown, west of Interstate 5, into the 21st century.
The plan is for the eventual improvements of E Street, all the way to Nicholaus Drive, city officials said.
“Anything we can do to start working on our roads, I’m all for it,” said Williams Mayor Roberto Mendoza. “This is years and years and years overdue.”
City Administrator Frank Kennedy said officials have been talking several months about possibly combining the E Street improvements, should the funding be secured, with the wastewater collection line improvements, which the city hopes to accomplish in the next year or two with a state wastewater treatment grant.
“Between those two (projects), we are going to be digging up E Street pretty significantly,” Kennedy said, “That money will help rehabilitate those trenches.”
The City Council on Oct. 20 approved a contract for $50,000 with Bennett Engineer to complete a conceptual design of the future E Street.
Street improvements may include a roundabout at the intersection of 11th and E, a new storm drainage system that will rid the city of the open ditches along the southside of E Street, the installation of new pedestrian and bike paths, and replacement of the city water and sewer mains. The Bennett contract also calls for the company to identify grant funding opportunities, perform public outreach, and prepare a grant application for the 2022 Active Transportation Program (SB 99) grant cycle.
“Hopefully, we can rehabilitate E Street from 8th Street all the way down to Virginia, and really make significant improvements to the traffic flow, pedestrian flow, and safety – up and down E Street,” Kennedy said. “That is our goal.”
Kennedy said the street project would be the largest and most complicated road project the city has accomplished in many years because of homes, businesses, the elementary school, Museum, and a nursing home, which are located all along E Street.
“Not even Marguerite Street was that complicated,” Kennedy said. “Marguerite Street had a couple of different funding sources, it was pretty much a done deal, it was pretty straight forward, and there was nobody out there. It was a rice field and we weren’t having to worry about traffic and moving people around.”
The city anticipates the final concept for the improvements, which will include sidewalks and parking on both sides of the street, to be before the City Council in December so a grant application can be made by the following spring.
“The sooner we can get a shovel in the ground the better,” said Councilman Santos Jauregui. ■