Hundred-year-old pipes and utility lines under downtown streets and sidewalks are expensive to replace, and the necessary street disruptions never make merchants or customers happy.  Such work isn't  cheap, either. $7.2 million in sales-tax money will reconstruct only the five downtown blocks that need it most, Athens-Clarke County Manager Alan Reddish told commissioners last week.  Those blocks are along Clayton Street from Lumpkin Street to Thomas Street and Jackson Street from Broad Street to Washington Street.  Streetscape improvements will be done, too. By the time construction begins (not before late 2013), a downtown master plan should be finished.

"It really needs to be done," Reddish said, but "it's going to be long-term and it's going to disrupt."  Until you start digging, you never know what you'll find, he added; such projects in the past have brought "a very intensive interaction with all the business owners."  Some Clayton street buildings have basements that extend out beneath the sidewalk; those will require the construction of block foundations.

Pressed by commissioners to limit inconveniences, Reddish said the work can be scheduled, if not for only the summer months of 2014 and 2015, at least to avoid downtown's busiest seasons.  "You wouldn't want to be down there during football season," he told Flagpole.  It's possible some of the work could be done at night, SPLOST Program Manager Don Martin told Flagpole.  Commissioner Kathy Hoard noted that, on past construction projects, even close cooperation between merchants and the county could not prevent businesses from appearing closed when they weren't.  

Several commissioners wondered if one-way downtown streets might be reconfigured at the same time for two-way traffic.  But "that's a much different question," Reddish said. It would require recurbing the angles for street parking and would cost more money.  "There's been some discussion over the years" that one-way streets are confusing to drivers,  Commissioner Jared Bailey told Flagpole, and some end up driving the wrong way.

For now, there's no money for infrastructure improvements on many blocks that will still need it, or even for additional streetscape improvements, except in the block surrounding City Hall.  "Each one of those segments is roughly $3.5 million" for underground infrastructure, Deputy Manager Bob Snipes told commissioners.  Streetscape improvements would be cheaper.