BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— The city council gave the go-ahead for more detailed plans to a landscape architect after approving her initial concepts for the South Lawrence Boulevard street scape project.
Elizabeth Manley said her recommendations should be viewed as an overlay that will enhance recent improvements to the road by a Florida Department of Transportation resurfacing project.
“We are not proposing any vehicular improvements other than perhaps if there’s consideration for a more decorative style of crosswalk,” she told the city council during a Jan. 20 meeting. “This is strictly a pedestrian streetscape improvement project.”
She said the goals of the project are to create a safe, welcoming and walkable downtown, in addition to enhancing views of South Lawrence Boulevard businesses for passing motorists and pedestrians.
Manley added that she hoped to create a cohesive view of the city’s downtown area, a half-mile stretch of road from Keystone Beach to State Road 100.
Another objective of the project is to connect the primarily public spaces in the southern section of the corridor with the commercial spaces in the northern portion. Manley also said she hoped to reduce the number of signs along the roadway competing for the eyes of motorists and travelers.
“We’ve heard a lot of comments about that zone between on-street parking and the sidewalk that’s currently grassed,” she said of public input about the project. “How can we improve the accessibility and the use of that zone as folks are getting in and out of cars on the street?”
Manley said she also took into consideration downtown’s three annual parades: the Our Country Day parade, the high school homecoming parade and the Christmas parade.
She said her recommendations align with the community’s desire to theme the roadway in a 1920s look, the same decade in which Keystone Heights was founded.
Manley said that based on downtown business owners’ desire to keep a clear view of their properties to motorists, she is recommending sable palms for the downtown area north of Nightingale Street.
She added that another idea she is proposing is street names put into the paving of streets.
“They are slip-resistant and vandal proof,” she said.
Other features include benches, planters and outdoor dining tables, in addition to a gateway feature that could be installed near the beach, alerting pedestrians and motorists they are entering the downtown area.
Council members said they were pleased with Manley’s initial concepts and instructed her to develop more detailed plans.
