A crowd of community leaders, business owners and city residents gathered inside the Gallup Cultural Center Aug. 22 for the final community workshop for the Coal Avenue Commons project.
The city of Gallup received a $150,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, “matched by $150,000 in contributions from local government, institutions and organizations, to re-imagine two blocks of Coal Avenue in the heart of downtown Gallup as an ‘event street,’” according to coalavenuecommons.com.
There were three design concepts to choose from for the project.
“This is our final community input meeting on the Coal Avenue Main Street project. We’re excited for the city of Gallup,” said Howard Kaplan, project manager of the consultant team from Wilson & Company.
Kaplan introduced the key players on the project, including George Radnovich from Sites Southwest, the lead landscape planning firm.
“The process actually started in May with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts,” Kaplan said. “There’s a lot of interest in this project and we hosted a series of focus groups.”
Radnovich said the three design concepts were the product of meetings with the public, city officials and business owners over a three-month period.
“It’s been an exciting process so far,” he said.
The three options consist of: Main Street, Main Street with parklets and Plaza Street. Features ranged from pedestrian tables, pedestrian scrambles, lighting, parklets, bollards, gates, trees, pavement designs and more.
People listened to the presentation and heard detailed descriptions of the amenities of each design. At the conclusion, they voted for their choice of design using colored stickers.
The group will rank the designs to select the concept by Sept. 3, before the final presentation to the City Council on Sept. 25.
Information: coalavenuecommons.com
By Rick Abasta
Sun Correspondent
