By Casey Steiner

The Courier-Herald

The Buckley City Council gave its approval this Christmas season to begin the design phase for the new Main Street improvement project.

The latest specifics of the project have been sent to city engineers and City Administrator David Schmidt hopes to have updated designs in hand by next month.

"We need to get rolling if we want to break ground this summer," Schmidt said.

Direction was given to the council during the Dec. 14 meeting. Despite a few aspects still under debate, the council approved beginning the next step of the design. If the engineers are able to return the new designs by next month, Schmidt said, it will be possible to seek bids in March and break ground in June.

The latest designs considered input given by city business owners and citizens during a Dec. 1 public meeting. Of the 40 people in attendance, 28 completed a survey as a means to vote on the several different optional amenities.

By the end of the council meeting, there was consensus to move forward with a street design that includes landscaping, sidewalk "bulb outs" at intersections, teardrop street lights, patterned crosswalks, 10-foot sidewalks and summer construction.

"I'm really excited," Deputy City Clerk Cheryl Proffitt said. "It's going to look great when it's all done."

Some concern was shown by the council about bulb outs (which extend into the street) and the different aspects of landscaping. It is a concern that bulb outs would be an inconvenience in parking, but as Councilman Randy Reed put it, "It's just parallel parking, we've been doing this a long time now."

In landscaping, the concern is not only what plants to include, but who will be responsible for watering, weeding and other general upkeep. The council may also consider another lighting option which would give two branches of lights on each street light - in one direction the light would hang over the street and in the other the light would illuminate the sidewalk.

According to Schmidt, all concerns are still under consideration. The engineers were sent the newest round of suggestions Dec. 15 and will turn them into another design for all to see, hopefully by next month. At that time the city will have the opportunity to give more input. It can give its approval of the design or ask that additional changes be made.

"In no way is the design complete," Schmidt said. "We're merely trying to get the ball rolling."

Though it is still several months away, the city is taking input on the best way to maintain road and foot traffic on Main Street during construction time. The two top options to date include closing the street completely for a period of about two months or leaving one lane of traffic open. The second option would take about 75 days to complete.

"By closing down the street we would save about 20 percent - about two weeks," Schmidt said.

For foot traffic most business will probably be asked to use back doors to let patrons in.

Casey Steiner can be reached at csteiner@courierherald.com.