On the corner of the Third Avenue sign street, plaza paving layed in the sidewalk fits snug on the block decorated with Chula Vista red local shoppers depend on to find a place to meet and shop for domestic little things, and dine on pizza slices. The official goal of the Third Avenue Streetscape Improvement project underway is to make everyone feel at home on the street.
La Bella Pizza Garden, found across from Memorial Park, starts Valentine's month with a street front just south of a sidewalk crossing dressed out with enough brick to make any walk go smoothly. The work done by the construction company 3-D Enterprises, which was awarded the construction contract by the city council last Valentine's Day, was designed to make strolls easy. The La Bella owners will pay the city back for the improvements made to its shop front.
Street crossings will take less time once the construction blockades come down later this year. Short distance street crossings are getting put in to make walks easier, and more memorable. Stores between H Street and Madrona Street are waiting for all the blocks to get converted into a stroll filled with enough trees to make any occasion one the minutes ticked off the clock while people meet in the open air are pleasing. On the block that ends in the park plaza that welcomes visitors into the park, metal pillars have already been put in on the sidewalk border, one by one.
Many colors in the streetscape will get shaded by the trees that will take root in the walk planters and out in the medians. Smart growth in Chula Vista does not mean towering heights. Trips through de colores that match the dishes and the shop names, all the way through, are the right kind of pleasant in the south city.
During the project's first part, the trees that will perk up the streetscape will come last. Chula Vista invested money from a SANDAG smart growth grant, Community Development Block Grants, the and the federal Recovery Act, plus TransNet funds, into making life thrive on Third Avenue.
Workers will move up the avenue to work on the paths and crossings all the way to just past the clock on the edge of the village plaza at the corner of F Street. The city main street has not yet grown into its prime of life.
New decorative signs will eventually make clear the way was made wider to welcome people in who plan to stand face to face. There is plenty of room in the streetscape to come for couples to walk along side by side, and for groups to stay and talk.
Red lights on a littler village driving route, in the heart of Chula Vista's business district, will make drivers wait and slow down, and even standstill, while gatherers stroll along.
The entire length from H Street to E Street will turn into a more "vital" village scene. Third Avenue is in the market for investments in more mixed use living places that add more homes, and shop bustle, to the city's heart. Though there is still much work to do on the project started in May in 2012, locals do not have much time before their community avenue has all the makings of a garden style market. Shorter distances will keep people with a local name apart.
A town center that has been in a project area that stretches down to I Street since 1976 has yet to get fit out with enough crowd attractions, and dressed up enough, to grow into the bustling modern village center in the master plan. The opportunities, however, continue to bring smiles to locals' faces.
Friendly short distance walks keep Third Avenue on the investment market.
The square property at the E Street corner, once taken up by the city to do its final work during the current Third Avenue improvement, will make meetings at a Chula Vista gateway a casual happening. New gateway signs will face incoming visitors out on the street on a slow stroll.
To read earlier articles, read
Market Street village squares mount in East Village
The rancho mystique on a green highway run
Promenade flanks boats docked at new Shelter Island marina
The UTC town beat away from home
Central Library work makes gains step by step
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