By the end of November, the Eight Corners business district will have received a nearly $400,000 facelift that will include a variety of improvements on the entire length of Broadway Avenue.
Funded in large part by a $360,000 Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program (ITEP) grant, the project will also include the installation of welcome signs at 10 locations in the village. The total project is expected to cost $445,000, meaning the village will have to set aside some $85,000 in its 2007-08 budget to cover costs above the grant amount.
Village Engineer Derek Treichel of Westchester-based Hancock Engineering said that the project would likely not break ground until early October. However, he said the work should be able to be completed by the end of November.
“Any time you do work later in the year, it is weather dependent,” said Treichel when asked if starting so late might be problematic. But, Treichel, said the kind of work contemplated is not nearly as weather dependent as road projects, and that the goal would be to complete the work in eight weeks.
The bulk of the improvements will be seen on Broadway Avenue, one of four streets intersecting at the Memorial Circle, forming Eight Corners. The street runs southwest from the intersection of Park/Monroe avenues to Madison/Lincoln avenues.
The current concrete median down the center of Broadway Avenue will be replaced by brick pavers, and some 66 new trees will be planted along the Broadway Avenue parkways.
Treichel said the village would plant four different “appropriately sized” species of trees along the street, including Hedge Maple and flowering trees-Eastern Redbud, Japanese Tree Lilac and Chanticleer Callery Pear. The trees will be regularly spaced along the street inside black metal parkway grates.
Some 10 trees on the south side of Broadway near S.E. Gross Middle School will remain intact. However, a handful of other smaller trees and tree stumps will be removed to make room for the new ones.
The plan also calls for some stretches of asphalt parkway in the business district on Maple Avenue and Grand Boulevard to be excavated and replaced with brick pavers and new concrete sidewalks. In addition, a length of cracked asphalt parkway on Monroe Avenue west of Park Avenue will be replaced with a grass parkway.
An earlier version of the plan also called for new pedestrian street lighting along Grand Boulevard from the circle to the Grand/Prairie business district. However, that aspect of the plan has been eliminated from the 2007 improvements. The new lighting could be part of a new ITEP grant application in the future.
The village, however, will still be able to erect “Welcome to Brookfield” signs at a number of locations in the village, including 10-foot wide entry signs at two locations-Washington Avenue and Golf Road just outside the Riverside-Brookfield High School football stadium and the intersection of Ogden and Custer avenues. The village would also like to install a similar sign at the intersection of 31st Street and Grand Boulevard, but does not presently own property or have a property easement big enough to accommodate the sign at that location.
Other, smaller entry signs are slated to be installed at the following intersections: 31st Street/Forest Avenue, Washington/Kemman avenues, 47th Street/Custer Avenue, 47th Street/Prairie Avenue, 47th Street/Maple Avenue, 47th Street/Eberly Avenue, Maple Avenue/26th Street and Ogden/Eberly avenues.