Students and East Side residents who are no longer tripping over damaged sidewalks on Thayer Street and competing with cars for space to cross the shopping strip have the four-year-old Thayer Street District Management Authority to thank.
As part of an $800,000 redevelopment effort, the DMA repaired sidewalks on the west side of Thayer between Meeting and Cushing streets and at various other locations along the street, said Abigail Rider, director of real estate and administrative services.
Iron trash receptacles and new street signs will also be installed this semester, Rider said. In addition, the location of "street furniture," such as benches and pots, will be reworked in an attempt to allow greater pedestrian flow.
"We want to keep our narrow sidewalks as uncluttered as possible," Rider said.
White, highly visible crosswalks in a brick-print pattern were stamped at the Thayer-Waterman and Thayer-Angell intersections and are currently being stamped at the corner of Meeting and Thayer. According to Rider, that crosswalk can't be completed until the temperature rises above 60 degrees because the crosswalk material is heat-sensitive.
The crosswalk won't be stamped at the Cushing Street intersection until upgrades to the University's hot-water lines are complete.
Randy Collins, a landscape architect at Gates, Leighton & Associates, which planned the current redevelopment, said visibility and cost were the most important factors in choosing the crosswalks' design and material. "It's more visible to motorists and pedestrians. That particular crosswalk accomplishes that pretty well," Collins said. "There were financial constraints, as in any project, so there were constraints on the materials we could use, but given the money we had, this was a very visible way to do it."
Further improvements, such as planting trees, will wait until spring. Pointing out the East Side's residential streets as examples, Rider told The Herald, "The trees will eventually grow and create a canopy over Thayer that is really going to improve the look of the street."
Collins said his firm was careful to avoid designing a canopy that might block merchants' awnings or signage.
The city of Providence and the University split the $800,000 cost of the redevelopment project, Rider said. The DMA's tax revenue will fund maintenance of the improvements, which costs about $60,000 annually, according to a Sept. 21 Herald article.
The University, the city of Providence and Thayer's 10 largest property owners banded together nearly four years ago to create the District Management Authority, which has special powers normally reserved for government, such as the power to tax, maintain public utilities, construct public infrastructure and perform landscaping.
The Sept. 21 Herald article also reported that budget considerations prevented the DMA from making all the improvements it had originally wanted, such as underground utility lines and street lamps.
On Jan. 5, the City Council approved the DMA, allowing commercial property owners to levy a tax of up to 5 percent on themselves to renovate and maintain Thayer. The DMA board is responsible for setting the exact level of the extra tax, allocating funds and managing individual projects in addition to creating an overall plan for revitalizing Thayer Street.
Some students were skeptical of whether this revitalization will actually attract more shoppers to Thayer. "I'm going to say no," said James Stout '09, when asked whether the improvements would draw people to Thayer. "But then again, I'm pretty uninformed, and small changes can make big differences."
"The design of the new crosswalks give me a strange desire to purchase footwear," said Josh Butera '09 facetiously.
Others, like Pete Kalmakis '10, said they were pleased with the changes but think more can be done. "It'd be cool if the entire street was repaved and looked nice, but it's kind of weird to have these nice designs in the middle of a street that needs paving," Kalmakis said.
Rider said the DMA's goal is to make Thayer fit in with the surrounding neighborhood. "We would all like more business on Thayer, but it's not totally about growth - it's about the feel of Thayer Street."
She added that beyond the current physical redevelopment, the DMA will now engage in a discussion on how merchants can more effectively present their stores in order to "keep them attractive and friendly."
"We want to ask, 'How does each store contribute to the streetscape?'" she said.
