Three blocks of East Capitol Avenue are about to undergo a $1.5 million face lift designed to lend a century-old look and feel to the Jefferson City neighborhood dominated by some 42 homes 100 years old or older.
City Planning and Protective Services Department staff hosted an open house Thursday at City Hall to give the public a peek at the changes, which should begin appearing next month.
Numerous East Capitol Avenue activists, including David Bordner, Holly Stitt and Quentin Rice, attended the event and bestowed smiles of appreciation on the new look coming to the street they call home.
City Engineer David Bange explained to the steady parade of residents that 37 existing mature trees - many of them sweet gums - would be removed from the three-block span between Adams and Lafayette streets, after which 56 new trees would be planted to replace them as highlights of the extensive professional landscaping. The new trees will include 20 ginkgoes, as well as sugar maples and swamp white oaks. The new trees will be 8 feet tall and 2 inches in diameter.
Professional arborists have guided the city's planning on this project, and Bange said the staff was anticipating a significant pool of local contractors would win the bids for the work. "We're blessed with a number of really good contractors who can do this kind of work," Bange told his audience.
Bange and Britt Smith, also of the city planning department, suggested the dominance of the sweet gums in the area may have reflected some long-ago landscaping plan or even a Boy Scout project, which they have found in researching previous spaces in Jefferson City.
Other highlights of the extensive overhaul of the neighborhood's look will be the installation of almost 60 historic reproduction street lamps. Bange said the picturesque lamps will represent an "extension of the downtown style lighting from where they stop at Adams Street through Chestnut Street."
Bange added city staff tried but was unable to identify exact duplicates of the often-praised downtown Jefferson City lamps because the vendor closed its doors, and the molds for the lamps disappeared in the process.
Not to be defeated, Bange and his colleagues found Pacific Lamp and Supply, a fourth-generation manufacturer of period specialty lighting in Seattle, which is providing the new Victorian-appearing street lamps for the East Capitol Avenue neighborhood.
The stark difference between the removal of the modern street lighting and replacement with the reproduction historic lamps will be augmented by what Bange calls "event electric to include 20-amp outlets on the light poles, larger amperage connections at designated locations and conduit for future system expansion."
Residents and visitors to the neighborhood after the project is completed, which will be within months, also will notice modifications in the roadway cross-section between Adams and Lafayette, matching the look of new sidewalks, curbs and street overlays.
The post-improvement street will be approximately 74 feet wide. East Capitol will feature two 11-foot driving lanes with a 6-foot-wide sidewalk, 7-foot greenway, 8-foot parking lane and 5-foot bike lane on both sides.
East Capitol also will be re-striped from Jefferson to Chestnut streets to include new bike lanes. Those will be complemented with the installation of bike racks featuring a new Jefferson City logo.
"We'll provide bike racks at various locations along this corridor including at a bus stop and a city parking lot," Bange said.
Other aspects of the facelift will include "constructing pedestrian bump outs to minimize crossing distance at Adams Street, Jackson Street and Marshall Street intersections," Bange told the visitors Thursday. Bump outs also are known as curb extensions and generally are placed at pedestrian crossings as a safety improvement.
The Thursday night meeting was hosted in cooperation with the Capitol Avenue Landmark League, a private organization not affiliated with city government. The group's efforts in promoting East Capitol Avenue are coordinated by Jayme Abbott, the city's neighborhood services manager.