SHERIDAN — Sheridan County is soliciting public comments on its project transforming a now-vacated portion of Brooks Street adjacent to the Sheridan County Courthouse.
On Tuesday, Sheridan County engineer Ken Muller oversaw a public meeting along with Billings-based landscape architect Nathan Steiner and project engineers Jeff Feck and Tim Brugger of Morrison-Maierle. Roughly a dozen county residents, including four Sheridan County commissioners, participated in the meeting.
Tuesday’s meeting was a chance to generate ideas for what the renovated street could look like, and the county engineer’s office will continue to accept public comments for the next few weeks, Brugger said. Morrison-Maierle will then create a preliminary design by March 1, 2022. A second public meeting will be held to discuss the preliminary plans before final plans are completed in July 2022.
For years, the section of Brooks Street adjacent to the courthouse would close seasonally from first snowfall in the winter to final melt-off in the spring, due to the street’s steep grade, County Commission Chair Nick Siddle previously told The Sheridan Press. The street has been permanently closed since the winter of 2019 following an accident in which a pedestrian was hit while using a crosswalk.
County commissioners voted to vacate the property in the summer of 2020 and have been considering options since then, Siddle said.
The county received a $100,000 Transportation Alternatives Project — or TAP — grant from the Wyoming Department of Transportation to fund the design project, Muller said, and could apply for another TAP grant to cover construction costs.
There are several requirements the new space will have to meet, engineers said, including maintaining access to the courthouse for both pedestrians and maintenance trucks. As part of their vacation agreement with the city, the county will also be required to provide continuous pedestrian access from the top of the hill to the bottom, according to the county’s Administrative Director Renee Obermueller.
The design team also has to work around underground infrastructure including a water line and telephone and fiber lines, Feck said, although the location of those lines could move if the final design necessitated it.
“We know they’d love to keep their lines at 30 to 36 inches deep, but we also know what we’re building there, and this isn’t an area that is going to change afterwards much,” Feck said. “…It’s not like an area where someone is trenching everyday or where vehicles are going to drive over it. I think there are things we can do that can make them comfortable while still allowing us some (creative) freedom.”
Perhaps the most complicated requirement to keep in mind, according to Muller, is the design will have to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, or at least partially compliant, to receive the TAP dollars for construction.
“We’re going to shoot for meeting ADA going down that steep hill, and it’s going to be a challenge,” Muller said.
With those requirements in mind, what could the newly vacated street look like? There are endless possibilities, according to Steiner. But he presented a preliminary vision including a walking path, picnic tables, plants beds and even a raised platform for concerts and performances.
Attendees at the meeting had their own visions for the property. Resident Sheila Flynn suggested a design inspired by Lombard Street in San Francisco incorporating native plants, shrubbery and annual flowers.
Several board members of nonprofit Rooted in Wyoming attended the meeting and shared their support of creating garden spaces in the vacated road. The board members said they would be willing to partner with the county to create community fruit and vegetable gardens.
Siddle said the final design for the project needed to be maintainable by the county and encouraged the project engineers to discuss their ideas with the county’s maintenance team before reaching any final decisions.
While it’s still not clear what the project will look like in its final form, County Commissioner Tom Ringley said “it will be great fun to see what the engineers come up with” in the coming months.
Written comments on the project can be submitted to the county engineer’s office at 224 South Main Street, Suite 428, through Nov. 23.
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November 11, 2021 at 01:00AM
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Public meeting focuses on preliminary plans for Brooks Street - The Sheridan Press
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