What locals and city officials consider one of the worst streets in Omaha will be rebuilt in 2020.
Jones Street, located downtown will be getting a complete makeover from 11th to 13th streets, according to Todd Pfitzer, an engineer for the city.
"It's a very poor conditioned roadway out there today. It’s a brick street, an old brick street. A lot of truck traffic down there, some areas that are more industrial that use trucks. That road is in terrible condition. If you drive it, you have to drive it very very slow. It’s like driving on the surface of the moon. It’s very rough," says Pfitzer.
Pfitzer says the street desperately needs work and a new redesign to allow more human elements and better parking, which could potentially bring in more developers and business.
"It encourages a development to say, okay we have a good street scape here, we have some side street parking, we have space to do some sidewalk café, got some street trees, it looks nice, there’s people down here, now we can come in and invest some money and activate this block," says Pftzer.
Currently, the city is moving forward with a conceptual design in hopes that other developments in the area trigger enough TIF money to add to the project.
Although construction wouldn't begin for another couple of years, the city is scheduling meetings with the public in the next few weeks, to get local residents and business owners' perspective and ideas on what they would want in a redesign.
