Published: April 15, 2008 07:49 pm            

City agrees to new contracts for streetscaping

BWOODBY@CULLMANTIMES.COM



With Cullman’s downtown revitalization plan nearing state roads, the city council agreed to amend a contract with engineers to ensure the streetscaping project adheres to Alabama Department of Transportation standards.

The agreement with CDG Engineers and Associates, Inc. will now allow the firm to coordinate with a landscaping firm to review existing landscaping along U.S. Highway 31 and U.S. Highway 278. Together, the firms will coordinate landscaping designs with the city and ALDOT and obtain necessary ALDOT landscaping permits.

The revised contract with CDG also provides for the firm to contract with another engineering firm to replace the traffic signal at Highway 31 and Highway 278, as well as with a firm to conduct electrical design for new pedestrian lighting. The actual electrical work will be conducted by the city.

The additional work will cost the city $37,000, paid periodically throughout the work process. In October, the city budgeted $1,308,620 for downtown revitalization and streetscaping.

Cullman City Planner Jim Fisher said city crews are also working on projects such as building pull-off areas near the Lake Catoma spillway.

“Right now, it’s pretty dangerous there,” Fisher said. “People stop in the road and you’re kind of blind pulling out of the Larkwood subdivision.”

Fisher said the city is also in the process of obtaining a welcome sign to greet visitors along U.S. Highway 278.

Along with revised street aesthetics, Fisher said the department is closer to completing preparations for the city’s comprehensive plan. The council voted Monday to allow the planning department to sign a contract with Red Sage Web Communications, Inc. to develop a Web site devoted to presenting the plan’s progress.

“This is our way of getting the plan out into the public,” Fisher said.

The plan, which presently fills 80 pages, will outline the city’s goals for the future and includes ideas and concerns residents have voiced through various public planning forums.

The Web site was budgeted for $10,000 in the planning department’s funds, but Red Sage submitted a proposal to complete the 30-page site for $6,300.

Fisher said he and Cullman Mayor Donald Green will meet with representatives from Red Sage soon to discuss the project’s design and when the site will be go online for residents to view.

        

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