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Published: March 27, 2008 5:01 a.m.

A better Barr Street

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Illustration courtesy City of Fort Wayne

Barr Street will be enhanced with new trees plus more-attractive – and wider – sidewalks as part of a $608,000 streetscape project. This artist’s rendering looks north on Barr from Berry Street. The Verizon Building is on the immediate right, with The Fourth Wave Building farther on the right. The illustration depicts a sidewalk café on the northwest corner of Berry and Barr streets where a parking lot now stands, but there are no current plans for a café. Behind the café on the left is the 1st Source Bank Building, home to Park Place restaurant.

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While site work at Harrison Square will soon give way to bricks-and-mortar construction, city officials are beginning a project that will help make a piece of the otherside of downtown more attractive.

Over the next three months, the city will fulfill a plan to make Barr Street more attractive with new trees, sidewalks, streetlights and curbs.

The streetscape project is part of downtown improvement plans and will enhance the Cultural District on the east side of downtown.

Mayor Tom Henry announced this week that work was beginning on the project, but the administration of Mayor Graham Richard initiated it several years ago. The city secured a state grant of $496,000 in 2004, and $112,000 in required local matching funds was authorized in 2005 as part of a downtown improvement bond financed with local income taxes. The city now needs to come up with only a few thousand dollars for contingencies.

“The project is 95 percent paid for today,” said Greg Leatherman, the city’s redevelopment director.

No improvements in the Barr Street Market area are included, but the sidewalks leading to the market will be wider, and new curbs will help make the area more pedestrian friendly.

Barr Street connects, among other downtown destinations, the market, the History Center, Park Place restaurant, the Arts United Center and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Arts United plans to study the building needs of its member organizations, and the streetscape could well complement any improvements or additions.

The project is the latest move to help make downtown more appealing, and it comes at little cost to local taxpayers.

Encouraging more pedestrian traffic along the street is part of downtown development plans, and the streetscape should help efforts to reach that goal.