Cookeville Crews Poised To Begin Phase Two Of Cedar Avenue Work

Cookeville City Manager James Mills said city crews hope to begin work on phase two of the Cedar Avenue renovations in the next week or so.

Mills said the city completed phase one work earlier this year. The next phase will focus on the section from Broad Street to Second Street. It will include installing bike lanes, and removing on-street parking. Mills said city crews fit in the work amongst other projects.

“This saves us a great deal of money,” Mills said. “But it also makes the projects take a little longer and that’s always a discussion as to whether we let our city crews do it. Which, they do excellent work, but they also have many, many responsibilities.”

Mills said the next portion will include the resurfacing and restriping of that section. The city is looking at constructing a new parking lot as a replacement.

The Street Scape project was designed to create a clean corridor between Tennessee Tech, Cookeville Regional and the downtown area.

“For the most part, not everybody, but for the most part it’s been very popular,” Mills said. “I think it’s enhanced all the property values, it’s made it a much more attractive corridor to drive through the city, and we’ve noticed there’s been a pickup in the use of bicycles. I think typically when you have an attractive area that promotes business, people want to be in a well-lit, attractive, clean environment to shop and dine.”

Mills said construction will include the complicated task of sidewalks across the railroad tracks, for which plans are currently being drawn up.

Mills said when Cedar Street project is complete, he and his team will be looking at other streets for street-scaping.