The plan for a renaissance on 25th Street just east of downtown that has been an agreed upon enterprise in the Golden Hills community since 1984 finally will get a new start in 2011. Design work begins, without delay, to lay out the finished end to end pathways that workers will construct for drivers and walkers later this year.
Months of community input meetings are long done and the official work start is near.
Beautification will give locals openings for easy and fair travel on the still revived street that day after day takes in usual customers from the downtown life vitalized by shopping in Horton Plaza and the night entertainment at theaters and clubs, and gives San Diegans a close escape after the typical visits made during the day in Balboa Park.
The revitalized street starts at the entryway just north of the highway 94 offramp and ends at Russ Boulevard, a street end filled with cultivated grass and trees that surround the entrance to the trails in the city's big park.
Workers will put in trees on a median that runs north from B Street, that will have a traffic circle surrounded by jacaranda trees, to Russ Boulevard. The cross streets on A Street, B Street, and C Street will get restriped for head-in parking.
Angled parking will take the place of streetside spots on a 25th Street filled with more trees.
Steps locals are familiar with will turn into paved feet on paths and intersection crossings at downtown's busy streets that run in from the west and go back downtown. North to Balboa Park, the view seen by travelers will turn greener.
The streetscape beautifucation is supposed to inspire a change in the business habits. Owners and their patrons can look ahead to walks on tree and landscape lined passages through to a step indoors.
C Street's entire crossing will have the same name but a entirely new design, from building face to building face.
No parting ways from a crowded path will be necessary even at the community's entrance end on 25th Street. Ten foot parkway strips let wear down into lower grade lengths, or turned into concrete, will get restored. Full length friendly and colorfully paved walks and shade overhead is the main beauty in the plan.
Travelers headed in and out and parkers get lasting places for their regular comings and goings. Golden Hill Transit Station west of Broadway is considered a useful spot to develop as much transit facilities, business plots, and residences as possible. Underground parking is planned for the corner across the way that is currently the place strip mall shoppers park, and locals pick up news and flowers.
The project is a smart growth forerunner funded by TransNet funds that had been held up until a 24 month plan to make the renaissance street a reality began in October 2010. The Pilot Smart Growth Incentive Program managed by SANDAG now is a construction enterprise in progress.
Work will culminate when a drive and walk urban connection is done from the entryway through the downtown cross streets to Balboa Park.
To read earlier articles in Saturday City Scene Chronicles, read
Work that stood up to the challenge at the front in 2011
Playing a part in the final setting for Christmas downtown
Work goes on at Balboa Park during Christmas season
The San Diego building standards started in history
Los Penasquitos home of the mountain lion
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