Deputy Mayor Cedric Grant says a few projects are just about to start, with others following each month through August
New Orleanians have been hearing about plans for improving selected streetscapes in the city for four years, but so far they have seen precious little work.
View full sizeA $4 million streetscape project on Harrison Avenue between West End Boulevard and Orleans Avenue is in its final design phase and a bid should be awarded by August. Officials promise that is about to change, but similar promises have been made before.
The street improvement and beautification projects stretch across the city from Lakeview and Broadmoor to Central City, eastern New Orleans and Algiers.
They involve adding trees and landscaping, replacing curbs, creating walking paths and in some cases reducing the number of driving lanes to make it easier for pedestrians to cross streets. as was done on Canal Street in the Central Business District a few years ago.
City Councilwoman Stacy Head has said the initiatives are "designed to be catalytic projects in carefully targeted areas of the city."
The list of more than 100 capital projects that Mayor Mitch Landrieu promised in August his administration would complete included about $22 million for more than 20 streetscape projects in its total budget of about $640 million. The money for the streetscapes work is coming from federal Community Development Block Grants.
Public Works Director Robert Mendoza told a council committee in January that work on many of the projects was about to begin. Some would be under construction by February or March and several more by April, he said.
But when Deputy Mayor Cedric Grant appeared recently before the same Public Works Committee, filling in for the suspended Mendoza, the timetables all had been delayed yet again.
Grant told Head, the committee's chairwoman, that a variety of problems had contributed to the delays, including bids that came in over budgets, delays at City Hall in executing contracts and some contractors' failure to comply with all city requirements. In some cases, he said, the project designs turned out to conflict with the needs of utility companies or the Sewerage & Water Board, and in others additional traffic analysis was needed, or officials saw a need for more coordination with neighbors before work begins.
Grant said a few projects were just about to start, with others following each month through August.
Grant said work on a $2 million project on South Claiborne Avenue between Napoleon Avenue and M.L. King Boulevard should begin in August. The project will include lighting on the median and a new monument to civil rights leaders.
A $4 million project on Harrison Avenue between West End Boulevard and Orleans Avenue is in final design phase and a bid should be awarded by August, Grant said.
A $3 million project to upgrade the appearance of Read Boulevard, Lake Forest Boulevard and Crowder Road around the site of the former Lake Forest Plaza mall was due to go to bid last month.
A $2 million project to upgrade South Carrollton Avenue near Palmetto Street and the Pontchartrain Expressway, around the site of the former Carrollton shopping center, is lagging behind most of the others because of the complicated traffic engineering. No date for beginning work has been set.
Grant said there also is no date to start construction on a $2 million project along a section of Old Gentilly Road referred to as the "front door" of the Michoud Assembly Facility site.
A $1.9 million project to beautify portions of North Claiborne and St. Claude avenues in the Lower 9th Ward is further along, with a contract likely to be awarded in July.
A $700,000 project in the commercial area around the intersection of Gentilly Boulevard and Elysian Fields Avenue should be under construction by September, Grant said.
A contract should be awarded this month on a $600,000 project along North Broad Street between Bienville Street and Orleans Avenue.
Work is due to start this month on a $500,000 project on Alcee Fortier Boulevard in eastern New Orleans, and on a $500,000 project on the Freret Street shopping district Uptown between Napoleon and Jefferson avenues. Each job is expected to take from 140 to 180 days.
Head said she looked forward to Grant's returning to the Public Works Committee in a couple of months with news that work was well under way on many of the projects.
Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.