At Monday evening’s work session, Perry Mayor and Council, at length, discussed possible concept designs for the Carroll Street Streetscape. The topic was brought forth by Public Works Superintendent Ansley Fitzner who used a slideshow presentation to show examples of some of the options being considered.
“What I have for you this evening are conceptual plans for the design of the Carroll Street Streetscape to support the downtown district,” Fitzner told Mayor Randall Walker and council members.
Some of the main goals of the effort is to provide more efficient parking and maximize pedestrian spaces downtown.
“These two concepts that I’m bringing to you this evening are pretty different with the intent of showing you some different ideas,” said Fitzner as she began the visual demonstration. “But we have the knowledge that what results from this discussion tonight may include components of both; you don’t have to choose one or the other.”
One of the plans the public works superintendent presented was more conservative, retaining much of the same structure as the current downtown. The other had more changes, with two of the most prevalent being the taking down of the trees on the current landscape and replacing them with new ones using raised planters, and major modifications in the parking.
“We all need to pay really close attention to this,” Mayor Walker instructed the council. “This is a major change in one of our areas here.”
Mayor Pro Tem Willie King expressed concern regarding the change in parking. “On the Legacy Park down there, people like to come visit. Where are they going to park?” he asked. “I was looking at it closely,” King added. “Unless I’m missing something, you’ve got Main Street connecting to Carroll, and then right now, they park on the side. If you eliminate that, do the people have to park on Carroll, and then walk back down to it? Is that your plan?”
Ansley admitted that initially, that might have to be the case. That brought more voiced concern from the mayor pro tem. This time, regarding the issue of safety.
“I have disappointment about that,” King said, “because you know as well as I know—people are going to come and they’re going to want to find a place to park, and then they’re going to want to convene down to Legacy Park. We want to make sure that whatever we do, we maintain safety. A lot of them bring their children with them. We want to ensure safety for the public.”
King went on to say, “When this pandemic is over and we go back to Food Truck Friday, we have a lot of people downtown, and we’ve got to have a place for them to park.”
“Do you guys want to think about this before you give any kind of direction?” Walker asked the board after more discussion. “I know this is the very first time that you’ve seen this.”
City Manager Lee Gilmour clarified, “We are not looking for any position or anything from council right now. The first thing we’re interested in is, between these two concepts, is there something that council just does not like? If there’s something that you just don’t like, we’ll take it out. If it generally appears to be OK, as far as you can tell—subject to taking a look-and-see—our next step is taking it before the DDA, the downtown merchants, and all the people who would be impacted by it and get some of their feedback.”
Gilmour told council that once they received feedback, they would bring the idea back to council with the hopes of getting clearance to move forward on the project in phases.
“This kind of project probably would not happen again for 50 to 75 years,” input Councilwoman Joy Peterson, “so I think a dramatic change is really exciting.”
With the approval of mayor and council, Gilmour received concurrence to proceed with setting up meetings with the Downtown Development Authority.
In other business that received unanimous approval, Anya Turpin, Special Events Manager for City of Perry, brought forth a request to display banners in the downtown area for Black History Month.
“Ms. Bynum-Grace has approached me to assist her with a vision that she has had for Black History month banners to be displayed during the month of February from 2021 forward in our downtown area. I’ve been working with her on the project, and we’ve come up with a design concept,” stated Turpin.
She went on to explain that the quote received was $2,574.60, which would include 14 banners for the downtown area and 30 custom banners for Courtney Hodges Blvd. The 14 banners earmarked for downtown Perry would display prominent people who have made an impact on the city such as Councilwoman Bynum-Grace, Councilman (Mayor Pro Tem) Willie King, several other staff members with the city of Perry as well as business owners and department figures that make sense to be placed in the downtown area.
“What do you need from us this evening,” Walker asked Turpin.
“I need approval to make the purchase,” she replied.
The approval was granted, and Bynum-Grace expressed her thanks to mayor and council for giving the green light for them to proceed.
“Thank you for your vision,” Walker told Bynum-Grace. “I look forward to seeing this in our downtown area.”
Gilmour recommended that council approve advertisement to fill a Community Planner position due to the popularity and growth in the downtown area. After some discussion, this request was tabled until Wednesday evening’s regular meeting at which time, it is to be voted upon by mayor and council.
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