By Anne Holzman
Falcon Heights will hold neighborhood meetings and public hearings in the next few months to settle on a plan for repaving Garden Avenue in 2023, which is one of several possible projects next year.
The work may include adding a sidewalk on the north side of the street for access to Falcon Heights Elementary School.
City council members reviewed five options at a workshop meeting earlier this summer.
The proposals show various combinations of sidewalk, planting strip and parking. One option leaves the street width at its current 36 feet, with parking on both sides and no room for sidewalk or planting strip. The other designs narrow the street to either 29 feet or 25 feet and include either a sidewalk along the north side of the street in front of the school, a planting strip or both.
Photo submitted by city of Falcon Heights.
Whatever design is chosen, the street will be completely repaved along with utility work and curb and gutter repairs.
The designs were included in a packet for the city council’s June 1 workshop, which can be found on the city’s website falconheights.org. The city’s contact for the project is Assistant City Engineer Stephanie Smith.
Also scheduled in 2023 are mill and overlay work for other streets near the elementary school, and paving the Iowa/Idaho alleyway between Pascal and Arona streets. Staff may also reassess the condition of other alleys this year to see if more warrant paving.
Alleys have a high level of assessment to property owners and must be approved by 30 percent of adjacent property owners to proceed. Currently, only the Iowa/Idaho stretch has met that requirement.
Also under consideration are reconstruction and repaving of streets in the Falcon Woods area south of Roselawn Avenue between Cleveland and Fairview avenues. This work is scheduled for 2023, but the council has indicated it may delay that project until 2025 in order to balance the costs and contract sizes between the two construction cycles.
Anne Holzman is a regular Park Bugle freelancer who covers Falcon Heights and Lauderdale governmental news.
