MIDTOWN TO HOST WYNNTON AREA MEETING
RESIDENTS ASKED TO SHARE VIEWS
by TIM CHITWOOD
There'll be dollars and dreams to talk about next week as Columbus' MidTown Inc. hosts a community meeting on revitalizing the Wynnton corridor.
Now that the Georgia Department of Transportation has approved a grant for the project to plant trees, bury utilities and improve pedestrian safety along Wynnton Road from Peacock to Hilton Avenues, MidTown's inviting residents to share their views on redeveloping the area at a Wynnton Corridor Workshop 5-6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Wynnton United Methodist Church, 2412 Wynnton Road.
The transportation enhancement grant the state just OK'd is for $797,840, to which MidTown will add $200,000, half pledged by Aflac and the rest by the Mildred Fort Foundation. MidTown had expected the state to approve the grant application. Among the road improvements planned are standardized 10-foot-wide vehicle lanes --- the current lanes vary from 9 1/2 to 11 feet --- a 5-foot-wide planted median in the road where now there's a 7-foot-wide painted median, "brick-stamped" crosswalks patterned and textured to be more visible to drivers, and sidewalks and curb cuts that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Tuesday's workshop will begin with a brief presentation on the road project, after which residents can offer comments and suggestions, said Teresa Tomlinson, the nonprofit MidTown Inc.'s executive director. Then guests will get to see slides of some concepts for improving specific properties along the corridor.
Five or six examples will be shown, each the result of owners or property managers meeting with planners from the Atlanta design firm of Tunnell-Spangler-Walsh and Associates (www.tunspan. com), the consultant advising MidTown on the revitalization effort, Tomlinson said.
"They're going to be coming in around 9 a.m. to meet with the planners, and the planners are going to draw conceptual ideas of how their property might be completely redeveloped," she said. "Then those ideas will be shown to demonstrate to people what a new vision of the Wynnton Road corridor will be like. It's very hard for people to visualize, you know, three-story buildings on Wynnton Road, where the first story's retail and the next two stories are residential units. But those are the sort of things that will probably be suggested."