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Harbour Island

Medians to receive $90,000 makeover

Officials say toppling oak trees and enhancing parts of the roads should make the island safer and prettier.

By SHERRI DAY
Published March 18, 2005

Harbour Island's road medians will soon sport a $90,000 new look.

The median makeover is partly a result of lobbying by the Harbour Island Community Services Association.

The group approached city officials last year and asked them to improve maintenance of the island's medians, association president David Schlingman said.

The oak trees looked sickly and were weakened by strong winds and storms, Schlingman said. The grass? It browns easily because rainwater runs off the humped medians into the street, he said.

Instead of making superficial enhancements, city officials determined that roots from the oak trees could possibly break through the street curbs, city architect Brad Suder said. City workers also found that after heavy rains or winds, the oak trees left a lot of debris.

City workers recently toppled the laurel oak trees in the medians along Beneficial Drive and Knights Run Avenue.

"It's going to be a definite improvement," Schlingman said. "This is a feather in the city's hat that they have addressed the difficulty with the medians."

Recently, Schlingman's group lost a battle to stop a city traffic improvement plan along Franklin Street near the entrance to Harbour Island. That defeat makes the median project an especially sweet victory.

"We did not lose this project," he said.

Officials from the city's Parks and Recreation Department will remake five medians on the island. Medians slated for improvement include those on Beneficial Drive between the bridge and Knights Run Avenue, Suder said.

The city also plans to redo medians on the island's west side on Knights Run between Beneficial Drive and Harbour Island Boulevard. Funding for the project comes from the city's 2005 capital improvement budget, city officials said.

The contractor is expected to start work in about three weeks and take two months, Suder said.

Workers plan to level the medians and install new irrigation systems. Suder's designs also call for planting new ligustrum trees, wild date palms and confederate jasmine.

"It'll be more appropriate landscaping in theme and scale for the entrance to Harbour Island," Suder said. "It's a very simple plan but hopefully, it'll be elegant and appropriate for a streetscape."

Sherri Day can be reached at 226-3405 or sday@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 17, 2005, 08:40:12]