March 2, 2021–4:58 p.m.
STAFF REPORTS
The Rome Public Works Committee held a called meeting Tuesday to review a concept for the 5th Avenue Bridge and the River District area.
The River District plan has four phases.
Phase A is the re-imagining of the bridge to make it more pedestrian-friendly.
Phase B involves the rest of 5th Avenue.
Phase C is the intersection and lower Avenue A, and Phase D is the West 3rd corridor.
The public works committee voted to get the ball rolling on Phase A, as explained by City Commissioner Mark Cochran, who chairs the public works committee.
“Go ahead and allow in-house engineering to work with the redevelopment committee, the public works committee, and the DDA to get a schematic design together,” he said. “Then, in-house engineering can and start working that through to its final phase so that they can go ahead and start constructing that. Part of that will be coning it off and seeing how the traffic flows and what it does.”
While that is going on, they will decide what to do with Phases B, C, and D.
“Whether or not we attack them in smaller portions, whether or not we are going to do the whole thing, whether or not the contractor is also the designer, or whether the designer is separate from the contractor,” Cochran added. “Then we can bring that all back around to how that ties into us going ahead and taking out money, and whether or not we are going to have to issue bonds or if we are going to piecemeal it with the SPLOST money that we have.”
Another important factor will be coordinating the work with anticipated construction by private developers in the area.
