The Mount Vernon streetscape study held a kick-off meeting with impacted business and property owners in the four blocks of Mount Vernon. More than 40 Mount Vernon business owners and residents were there for the first session.
Jeremy Koemmer of JEO explained that the streetscape study will stretch from Third Avenue to B Avenue in Mount Vernon, encompassing roughly four blocks of First Street in uptown Mount Vernon. These first sessions, Koemmer explained, were collecting information from those impacted and helping to come up with the design and scope of the streetscape to happen, known as the visioning process.
“Right now, we’re more here to listen to the ideas you have on this streetscape,” Koemmer said. “We’ll take that feedback with us into the design process that follows and present a design in May or June.”
A final design will be presented to the city in late fall, with the absolute soonest the project could begin being spring of 2025. City administrator Chris Nosbisch said it would be more likely the project would start construction in 2026, depending on the scope of the project and staggering with the Iowa Department of Transportation’s plans to do repaving work on Hwy. 1 through Mount Vernon.
“I do not want to see the closures of Hwy. 1 and First Street at the same time if we can avoid it,” Nosbisch said.
Areas the streetscape is looking to address include aging infrastructure beneath First Street, the pavement conditions of the roadways and safety and accessibility issues for the streets.
Koemmer noted there are some complex building frontages in the uptown.
One of the key areas that they want to address with any infrastructure improvements is removing any lead materials that may be used for water pipes.
“We don’t want to change the character of any of these buildings, but want to improve the infrastructure for these roads for what the community sees in the future,” Koemmer said.
Koemmer said that businesses that have stairs to access their building may not have that addressed if it doesn’t encroach into the sidewalk too far, the focus on accessibility is dealing with some tripping hazards that have developed along the sidewalks currently. Nosbisch said that there have been eight injuries due to tripping in the eight years he has been in Mount Vernon, including one death.
Tiffany Zafrikar of Mount Vernon Family Counseling asked if there was any chance that the height of the sidewalk access along Second Avenue can be addressed.
“There’s a foot or more height for those curbs to the sidewalk, which leads to tripping issues for people trying to get to businesses along those stretches,” Zafrikar said.
Koemmer said that wasn’t in the general scope of the project currently, that it was mainly the intersection area with Second Avenue and sidewalks there that was planning on being addressed.
One of the biggest issues that business owners identified as a need for the uptown was parking.
When it came to the attributes that people liked about Mount Vernon’s uptown, walkability, the historic nature, the arts and murals and inviting nature were all discussed.
As for things that were challenges of the uptown – that hilltop, snow removal and unfinished nature of the streetscape were items.
Nosbisch said while he likes the trees in uptown, he would prefer not to have trees that “fruit” in the uptown, which contribute to tripping hazards on city streets.
Other items of note that people loved about uptown Mount Vernon was the dedicated places to sit outside and the fact that there are trees in the uptown. Rick Elliott said if trees do have to be removed as part of the project, he would like to see them replaced or other greenery added.
When it came to lighting improvements, Nosbisch said the city is hoping to be part of a pilot program with Alliant Energy for some new lighting features in the uptown that would be insstalled in conjunction with the streetscape or before that project is completed.
Gretchen Lindenboldt with Wren and Purl said what she was excited about most with this streetscape is that it extends from Third Avenue to Avenue B and would help with building the cohesion of those blocks being part of the uptown.
Tommie Oeuversen of Fuel said she loves that the city is looking to invest in developing the uptown streets.
Outside dining areas were mentioned, and people said they liked the efforts that Little Scratch Coffee Shop and Iron Leaf Press made to have seating and decorations this winter and fall.
Katrina Anderson and Danielle Chargo explained that they are renters in those buildings and have explored with the property owners the concept of utilizing the outside spaces in that manner. If this is something citizens want to see happen, it should be explored with the current business owners.
When it came to looking at a similar pocket park to the north alley, however, many businesses along that stretch said due to the amount of deliveries that happen, they do not want to see access to that north alley closed in the manner Hilltop Pocket Park is closed.
Meredith Hoffman asked about the scope of the project and the impact to businesses.
Koemmer said the biggest impact to businesses would be the closure of the streets during the construction process and if there were items like lead found in service lines for a business, they would have to be replaced.
Nosbisch said that while he wants the streetscape to move forward and address infrastructure in the uptown that needs to be addressed, if the proposed streetscape is going to prove too much of a hardship for uptown businesses, that the project would be revisited.
“I don’t want to see businesses closing because of this,” Nosbisch said. “We put off looking into this project due to COVID-19 and the derecho and the impact to businesses then.”
Koemmer said there are ways they can look at staging the project in construction to have minimal impact or closures to the uptown while improvements are being made.
As to the scope of the project, Hwy. 1 and First Street as farm to market roads are available for a number of grants that other streets do not have access to.
Elliott said that if the city is going to look at improvements to parking at the city’s and banks parking lots, it might make sense to extend the streetscape just a bit further to look at the parking lots at First Street Community Center and the Iowa Physical Therapy lots in uptown Mount Vernon as well and addressing issues there.
Another meeting with business and property owners impacted by the streetscape will be held in the April time period, where visioning of the project will take place.
A survey is currently up at https://bit.ly/4brsgom. The survey will be up now through the end of March, and citizens are encouraged to weigh in on the project.