ST. CLOUD, Fla. — Downtown St. Cloud might soon look very different.
City leaders met with business owners Wednesday about revitalizing the streets and sidewalks.
Businesses owners had plenty to say about the proposed changes, and that's exactly what the city had hoped for. There was a decent-sized crowd inside City Hall discussing the concept.
Many seemed on board with the idea. What they're hoping to do is to revamp and revitalize downtown.
"It looks so dirty and dingy," said business owner Traudi Royzor.
Wednesday’s information session was all about letting the stakeholders of the community get a sense of the first phase of the revitalization plan, which focuses on New York Avenue and Centennial Park.
The project seeks to add new lighting, update streets and sidewalks and fix drainage issues. It also aims at changing the traffic pattern to at least three one-way streets.
Officials said the project will be funded with several different sources of money.
The city of St. Cloud has previously had some general budgeting issues.
“This money we are using has traffic impact fees in there. It has the CRA fees in there,” Deputy Mayor Dave Askew said. “We have two bills out there -- one in the House, and one in the Senate -- that (say) we are looking to get money from the state to help revitalization of our downtown.”
The designs presented to the public Wednesday are preliminary concepts.