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City moving forward with smaller ‘Phase II’ of Streetscape
Officials warn it could be a long wait for the rest of downtown, 13 years after project’s first phase tore up the square
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
WASHINGTON — Washington City Council members have voted in favor of a resolution directing contractors to outline plans for much-anticipated sidewalk and street construction downtown.
A task order approved by elected officials Aug. 19 directs engineers at Strand Associates to develop preliminary plans to update over 1,600 feet of sidewalks in downtown, along with “lighting improvements” and efforts to attract contractor bids on the project. It also establishes a rough start time for construction in August of 2026.
According to that task order, the planned sidewalk renovations all fall just outside Washington’s square, on sidewalks in front of landmarks like Beans Pharmacy, Frontier Family Restaurant, Ross Auto, Igraphix Inc., the Washington Evening Journal office and Beauty with Grace Salon.
Officials hope to build momentum for other improvements
Downtown infrastructure improvements have long eluded Washington’s municipal officials, after massive street renovations in 2008 tore up the square with plans to make similar changes on surrounding streets a few years later.
Those plans failed to materialize, however, and have remained on the back burner ever since. In 2023, council members were told the price tag for similar work on every water main, sewer line, street and sidewalk surrounding the square would total roughly $10 million, a sum that may have risen in the years since and far exceeds the city’s $1.1 million earmarked from several years of Riverboat Foundation grants.
“I think it’s agreeable to everyone in this group that we don’t really have $11 million laying around, nor the ability to bond for $11 million, at this point,” City Administrator Joe Gaa said at a mid-July council meeting, were he estimated the price at slightly above that reported in The Journal two years prior. “We walked around and looked at the worst sidewalks in town … what we determined is, there are some areas we should stay away from for now. If we start to tear into those, we would eat up the entire balance pretty quickly.”
The highest-damage areas included the west side of Iowa Avenue, a side of the block that includes the ‘Meet me in Washington’ mural and Kennedy Insurance Agency, where a set of stairs on the sidewalk have fallen into disrepair.
That side of the street was not included in the city’s task order, approved in August. Municipal officials say the sidewalks there would require entirely new landscaping to remove the stairs, a change that could require an overhaul of the street itself.
“Just the engineering alone — Solomon could not figure that one out,” said Council Member Illa Earnest, when asked about the sidewalk between Marshall’s Furniture and H&R Block. “Unless you can levitate, it’s extremely tricky. And there’s not a whole bunch of businesses there.”
Gaa said in July that the planned improvements would likely total around $1.4 million, and would hopefully get the ball rolling on other repairs.
“It enables us to spread the money around, and work on it in such a way that doesn’t deter us from doing other things,” he said. “We know we need to do street work and utility work, and there will be several sidewalks remaining. But this moves something forward that hasn’t moved forward for a long time.”
Financial specifics unknown
With no plans to open the project up for bids until February, it’s not clear just how much the sidewalk projects will cost, beyond the rough $1.4 million estimate Gaa offered in July. The figure for the engineering task order approved Aug. 19 totaled $293,600, according to the council’s meeting materials.
It’s also up for debate how the city will fund the work if it exceeds the $1.1 million already reserved for Streetscape projects. At a meeting in July, Council Member Pat Morgan floated the idea of assessing downtown businesses for part of the cost. He likened the approach to the city’s policy of assessing homeowners for sidewalk repairs in front of their properties.
“As much as I want to have nice areas for people walking around in the square or the super square, I want it to be somewhat equal as well,” he said. “I don’t want to just do everything for everyone downtown, and then tell residents within the city limits, ‘Sorry, you pay for your own sidewalks.’”
Others were more skeptical of the approach.
Earnest noted that downtown sidewalks — built with larger tiles for heavier foot traffic — were more expensive than those in residential areas. Gaa said he worried the approach would leave gaps in sidewalk repairs where business owners were unwilling or unable to pay for the work. He also said the approach would likely be limited to a “small buy-in,” from downtown businesses, rather than a major source of funding relief.
Fate uncertain for future Streetscape work
It’s anyone’s guess how long further sidewalk improvements might take, not to mention long-awaited improvements to downtown water and sewer infrastructure, or streets.
Not everyone is happy with the selection of sidewalks for the upcoming round of repairs downtown. In a letter to council members in July, downtown business owner and former mayor Jaron Rosien asked officials to reconsider the scope of the project, such that it would encompass the south side of West Main Street, where he owns a restaurant.
“For my business … the thing preventing me from being able to provide much desired outdoor service (like that at Cafe Dodici) is the completion of the second phase of the streetscape in this portion of the block,” he wrote. “It has been long awaited for, personally for more than a decade!”
Council members have also worried in the past about water pressure on the street, where at least one fire hydrant malfunctioned during the Greiner Building fire in 2022. An aging sewer system running underneath downtown is also a common cause for concern among local elected officials.
Asked after the last council meeting whether the timeline for future Streetscape work would span years or decades, Gaa said he wasn’t sure.
“It just depends on how much money we have, and all of that,” he said. “I think it’s important to get started, but you’re right, we have more work to do, and it will all come down to money.”
Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com
