This is the ninth installment of a weekly update column courtesy of the city’s Columbia Project Communications Task Force.
This is going to be another big week in the downtown construction of Rossland.
Sidewalks will be removed on the north side of Columbia this week, working west from St. Paul to Spokane.
Next week, the south side will be done in the same manner, but moving west to east, once the north side is completed.
The work will be done outside of our stores’ business hours whenever possible.
Graciously, when it comes time to remove the sidewalk in front of the Prestige, however, the Copcan crew will do so later in the mornings so as not to disturb any guest’s sleep.
Copcan has also decided to maintain business access to the stores with compacted gravel surface walkways as opposed to using millings.
Gravel will be much cleaner for the stores and not get tracked onto shops’ floors.
The Washington/Columbia intersection will be closed for the larger part of the next two or three weeks.
The Spokane St. and Queen St. intersections with Columbia will be open intermittently over the next week or two.
The laneway entrances off Washington St, near the Washington/Columbia Ave intersection, will be closed this week for storm and gas line upgrades.
Parking in the thrift store lot, Rossland Hardware lot and in Sourdough Alley will still be accessible via First Ave.
The change in pedestrian and vehicular flow will be directed by signage.
The first block of Washington Street will also still be accessible via First Avenue for the most part. Shop owners on Washington St will be notified in person and consulted.
The laneway between Subway and Ferraro’s will be closed for a couple of weeks for a gas line upgrade.
The much maligned flashing overhead crosswalk sign at Washington St and Columbia Ave will be coming down this week…and will never be going back up!
This flashing overhead crosswalk sign went up in 2005 as a requirement of the Ministry of Transportation for all crosswalks.
The end product became a very unnatural looking prop in the city’s otherwise beautiful skyline and the resultant Rosslander outcry was loud and clear.
Due to the strong disapproval of Rosslanders, MoT did not put up any further overheads and, in fact, ground off the painted markings at the crosswalks of Queen St, Spokane St and St. Paul.
On the City of Rossland website, you can now find new ‘fly-through’ videos of what our finished downtown will look like, renderings from six different perspectives and a diagram of current parking available.
Please look for them here.
“The Mayor is In”:
Mayor Granstrom will be holding weekly office hours, welcoming drop-in visits to him at Rossland City Hall from 10:30-11:30 every Monday.
Please contact us at columbiaproject@rossland.ca with your comments, concerns, ideas, or questions.
The phone number for technical questions and concerns is 250-362-2328.