Jamestown City Hall on Third St. is surrounded by Tracy Plaza.
JAMESTOWN – The city of Jamestown’s Public works Director is inviting the public to City Hall Tuesday afternoon so residents can learn more about a plan involving the future development of Tracy Plaza.
DPW Director Jeff Lehman said that his department will be applying for state funding to continue in the renovation effort of the plaza, which is the open space surrounding City Hall.
Lehman told WRFA Monday that part of the renovation includes an effort to create green space.
“We’re looking at some green infrastructure – trying to make the plaza a little more user friendly, a place where people may want to come to,” Lehman said. “We just thought we’d have an informational session and let the public know what’s going on.”
The city has already done some renovation work on the plaza the past couple years, but Lehman said the next phase of the project will be to implement green infrastructure, which could be benefit the plaza a couple of ways.
City DPW Director Jeff Lehman (center) during a recent city council work session.
“We’ll be looking at ways to add grass and plants [to the plaza] because that slows down water run off and also cleans the water coming off of the plaza. And it looks good,” Lehman said. “There’s also heat that comes off the plaza in the summertime and that really pounds the south side of city hall and we’re thinking there could be some cooling factors with the introduction of green infrastructure. Also there’s insulation that’s going to go into the plaza that’s not there currently and we’ve got some major heat loss from the building because of it.”
Lehman says the overall cost of the Tracy Plaza renovation project is between $5 to 6 million, but that includes work that has already taken place and paid for through a million dollar bonding proposal approved in 2015. Lehman said the city is hoping this next phase could be covered by a grant from the state’s Consolidated Funding Application program.
The CFA program is an annual funding program that has provided money for a variety of projects in the area, including the National Comedy Center, the hotel that is being developed in Celoron, and the renovation of the Lillian Ney Renaissance Center on 3rd Street.
Tuesday’s information meeting begins at 4 p.m. in the city council chambers and is open to the public.
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