Thursday, September 02, 1999
Upcoming: updated uptown Oxford
Plans for parks, streets outlined
BY RANDY McNUTT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
OXFORD — You will see a “new” uptown Oxford by the early 21st century.
The city plans to improve the uptown parks and streets and build a park on Fairfield Road.
Final design for Oxford's new streetscape project should be completed by December. The work will complement planned improvements to the uptown parks.
Last month, City Council approved a parks-improvement bond ordinance, allowing the city to borrow $3.9 million. With interest over 20 years, the city will eventually pay about $7 million from its general fund.
Taxes won't have to be increased, officials say.
“Half the money will go for a new community park” on Fairfield Road, Mayor William Snavely said. “The city has purchased 115 acres of farmland and trees next to the Miami University Airport. This project is something the community has wanted for some time. We don't have adequate ballfields and soccer fields. The park will enable us to have both.”
Baseball fields should be ready in summer 2001. Some soccer fields could be ready next summer.
The mayor said the downtown streetscape project will improve everything from sewers to sidewalks uptown. The city also will add new light poles, and possibly bury power lines.
“It's a very exciting project
that will take care of some long-overdue maintenance of our business district,” Mr. Snavely said. “We hope it will be a stimulus to business in our uptown area. It's a culmination of dozens of public meetings. Citizen committees did most of the design, with help from professionals.”
Next year, the waterline from Elm Street to Campus Avenue will be rebuilt in late spring, followed by the Campus Avenue to Poplar Street portion of the High Street streetscape project and storm-water improvements, said City Engineer Chuck Petty.
“This is an old community. We have no really functioning storm sewers beneath High Street,” the mayor said.
In 2001, parts of the streetscape between Poplar and Beech streets will be constructed. The last section of High Street will be rebuilt in 2002, as well as side streets, perimeter streets and alleys, Mr. Petty said.
High Street will remain brick, the mayor said.
The city will renovate the two uptown parks, Memorial and Martin Luther King.
Ideas have come from the city's Uptown Parks Committee, consisting of local business and community leaders.
The city will receive private donations for the project, including $50,000 from the local Altman Foundation, started by a former Miami professor.
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TRISTATE DIGEST
Upcoming: updated uptown Oxford
Volunteers labor to finish park
