Lima project manager Dakota Clay, right, and utility department operations manager Eric Bontrager, left, share information with residents on the Catalpa and Holmes Reconstruction Project at Tuesday night’s open house at Unity Elementary School.
Jacob Espinosa | The Lima News
LIMA — Lima city engineer Ian Kohli said he thought Tuesday night’s open house for the Catalpa and Holmes Reconstruction Project went well.
Residents had questions about how the project — working on curbs and gutters, storm sewers and structures, water lines and sidewalks — would affect them, but Kohli and other representatives engaged in lengthy discussions with them.
“A lot of times when we have these meetings, people are concerned about what the construction work looks like and what kind of impacts they’ll have to them,” he said. “So far, those have been the main concerns we’ve heard, and we’ve been able to talk to them and let them know what to expect.”
Resident Paulette Allen said she wanted to hear from the source how the project, to cover Catalpa Avenue from Sugar Street to Simons Avenue and Holmes Avenue from Sugar Street to Catalpa Avenue, may go.
“I wanted to know more in layman’s terms what they were doing,” she said. “I was concerned about the storm drains because I’ve had other people complain to me about them. I can’t do anything about them, so maybe the mayor could.”
Mayor Sharetta Smith said the project, funded by a $357,157 grant from Ohio Public Works Committee and money from the Better Together fund, utilities and the stormwater utility, was a good example of the city’s larger revitalization efforts.
“We’re coming alongside a private investment (Jefferson Manor), where they made interior and exterior improvements to the apartments there, and here we are about to do the storm sewers, the streets and curbs. But even earlier this year, we worked with the developer to replace the trees through our tree rebate program, as well,” she said. “We hope to duplicate this model in different places across the city where there is some private investment that we can help encourage with the public investments that are needed.”
The project is set to cost $1.9 million and will last for eight months starting March of next year.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
