Beefing up Bates Street
The reconstruction of Bates Street will include features that set it apart as a festival street. There will be bollards to close off both ends to traffic, stained and stamped concrete to enhance the look, no curbs to trip pedestrians, and electrical outlets for food trucks and generators.
construction in July on Bates Street and the park, which is about a third of an acre. There will be on-street parking on Bates Street as well as on the new Elm Street. “Parking is the No. 1 con- cern now in Old Town,” Hens- ley said. Bates Street will also get removable bollards so it can be closed for festivals. “It’s a little fancier” than the orange and white barri- cades the city would typi- cally use to close off a street, Hensley said. Other features include gateway entries on Bates Street; enhanced lighting; built-in food truck hook- ups for water and electric- ity; improved landscaping; and more. Bates Street itself will have pavement that is stamped and stained to give it a more decorative look, according to city plans. Earlier this year the city’s Public Art Board selected nearly a dozen designs for benches that will also serve as public art. “The goal here is really to enhance the festival street atmosphere and to really just set Bates Street apart from other spaces,” Lupe Orozco, the city’s manager for admin- istrative services, told coun- cil in May. A look at funding Part of Hensley’s job is keeping residents and busi- nesses abreast of what is hap- pening, she said. “It’s really easy to get wrapped up in the stamped and stained concrete and the
DESIGNED BY NICOLAS DELGADILLO
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Elevated pavilion
Bates Street Park will include these amenities. • Elevated pavilion • Open lawn • New landscaping • Enhanced lighting
Open lawn
Seating areas
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Designated crosswalk
ultimately for us, it’s just trying to make Old Town Keller a unique destination for residents and create some vibrancy by attracting new businesses,” he said. Construction on Bates Street began in July and is expected to wrap up in fall 2023, according to the city’s timeline. The next phase will involve the reconstruction of Elm Street, which is still under design and tentatively scheduled for construction beginning in 2024. Project details The ongoing construction is part of what city officials have dubbed Old Town Keller Phase 2. The area extends from Keller Parkway to Bear Creek Parkway and is between Main Street/US 377 and Elm Street. The first phase involved nearly $4.5 million worth of improvements to the west
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WHAT IS NEXT: The city is working on designs to reconstruct South Elm Street from Keller Parkway to the new roundabout at Bear Creek Parkway. Construction is expected to start in 2024.
IMPROVING PEDESTRIAN SAFETY A landscaped median will be added to Main Street (US 377) between Vine and Olive streets along with a pedestrian hybrid beacon and a designated crosswalk so people can more safely move between the east and west sides of Old Town Keller.
SOURCE: CITY OF KELLER/COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
side of Main Street/US 377 just south of Keller Parkway. Keller Public Works Direc- tor Alonzo Linan said the city started with the basics: replacing the water and sewer lines, improving drainage, and redoing streets. Crews then added parking, more fencing, enhanced lighting, landscaping, outdoor seating and multiple gateway struc- tures, according to city doc- uments. The city also added a landscaped path to encour- age pedestrians to walk behind the buildings rather than along the heavily traf- ficked highway, Linan said.
“What started out as a util- ity infrastructure project has now become an economic development project,” Linan said. “And I think that as we do Bates and Elm [streets], we hope that it spurs enough redevelopment and reinvest- ment that it starts to snow- ball into more than what we started with.” Sarah Hensley, assis- tant director of community development in Keller, said after the first phase was completed, the city did a lot of work to figure out what would come next. There were public meetings, feedback
from the community and the businesses, and work with consultants and City Council. “There was a lot of thought and data collection and con- versation that went into iden- tifying which projects should come first on the east side,” she said. Phase 2 started with the roundabout being con- structed at Elm Street and Bear Creek Parkway to improve traffic flow. With that completed over the summer, the city started
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