Open house shares revitalization ideas

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Seward residents got the chance to give input on ideas to revitalize the downtown area.

On July 31, RDG Planning and Design held an open house at the Seward Civic Center to share ideas and receive feedback on the revitalization plan it is putting together for the city.

These plans include creating gathering spaces, facade improvements, pedestrian bump-outs, gateway signs, shading the bandshell and improvements on highways 34 and 15.

In December 2016, Seward was chosen to receive a $30,000 grant from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development’s Community Development Block Grant program.

The city of Seward matched $7,500—25 percent of the grant.

The CDBG grant is a two-phase process. The $30,000 is to be used to create a plan to improve downtown—which RDG was contracted to do. That plan will be submitted for the second phase, which is a competitive grant application.

The second phase would provide $350,000 to implement the plan created in phase one.

During the open house, Amy Haase of RDG said these plans are in preliminary stages. She said some ideas are more short-term goals than other ideas, like the highway improvements.

Those long-term ideas are not in the running for the second phase grant application, Haase said, adding that the application will focus on a specific project.

The city can still use the rest of the plan developed by RDG, Haase said.

Nick Klimek, also of RDG, said the goal of these preliminary ideas is to improve on what Seward has and to start a conversation that the city can use to continue improvements.

“This shouldn’t be a one-off,” Klimek said.

During the open house, Klimek went over some of the ideas.

One was to improve pedestrian zones in the downtown area. He said downtowns are best viewed on foot. Those plans include pedestrian bump-outs, which round-out and extend sidewalks at road crossings and shorten the distance for those crossing the streets.

Improving pedestrian zones also means pulling people into the area, Klimek said. One idea is to create a sidewalk that goes northwest through Memorial Park, located on Third and Seward Streets, to what is currently a gravel parking lot owned by the Farmers Cooperative on Fourth and Jackson Streets.

Klimek said the sidewalk could pull people toward the bandshell and the rest of downtown.

He also said the plans include the city purchasing the parking lot if it were to go on sale and turn it into public parking.

A second idea is facade improvements to downtown buildings.

Haase said the city could set up a program and guidelines for facade improvements, which may include a match from the building owners.

“They [the city] want to make sure there’s plenty of skin in the game,” Haase said.

She said anyone in the district could apply for those funds.

Another idea would include adding shade, perhaps in the form of a canopy, to the bandshell.

Klimek and Haase said that idea was brought up only recently.

“That’s one of the projects we’re going to be looking at harder,” Klimek said.

Preliminary plans also included creating a water play space on the northeast corner of the courthouse square. Klimek said this would require the county to be on board.

He added that area could be turned into a fountain that can be used by the public and turned off for events like the farmers market or the Fourth of July.

A long-term idea would require the city to purchase the Herpolsheimer’s lot on the southwest corner of Seventh and Seward Streets, if it were to go on sale. It could be turned into a gathering space with public parking and an area to hold events.

The highway improvements would require cooperation with the Nebraska Department of Transportation, which has already begun planning a project for Highway 15 in its five-year plan.

The Highway 15 project—which is a long-term idea and might not use the CDBG funds, according to Haase—would resurface the road through downtown and widen the highway north of Jackson Street to a three-lane road with a shared turn lane.

RDG added plans to place buffers with trees and landscaping between the road and the sidewalk.

“This is an opportunity to say ‘it’d be really nice to make sure we get these,’” Haase said.

Haase also said the state is open to slowing traffic through town on Highway 34.

Currently, Highway 34 is a five-lane road with two lanes in each direction and an alternating turn lane.

The proposed idea would turn the highway into a three-lane road with a shared turn lane and add parallel parking on either side. The sidewalks would also be widened.

Haase said this tells drivers they have arrived in town and to slow down, as well as adding space between the sidewalk and moving cars.

Klimek added that this change would shorten the curb-to-curb distance from 71 feet to 50 feet, meaning pedestrians crossing Highway 34 have a shorter distance to walk across the road.

“Seventy-one feet is a long time to be in traffic,” Klimek said.

Another idea includes gateways along the highway with signs to welcome people downtown.

After the open house, the next step for RDG is to present the ideas to the Seward City Council for direction. At that point, Haase said RDG will narrow the plan for final approval from the city.

During an Aug. 3 phone interview, Haase said landowners whose property is included in these plans have not been contacted yet. She said the city would contact them if those plans were to ever be implemented.

The application for the second phase grant is due in September.