ASHTABULA – Ashtabula City Manager Jim Timonere is excited about all the improvements that are being made to Main Avenue in downtown Ashtabula.
At city council’s Aug. 17th pre-council meeting, he gave “a quick update” on all the work that is being done.
The city was awarded $1,642,695 from the Appalachian Community Grant Program (ACGP) for downtown revitalization/streetscape improvements on Main Avenue back in 2024. In addition to the streetscape improvements, the money is also paying for a façade improvement program in the downtown.
“As most of you have probably seen, we’re nearing completion of the sidewalks, lights have been installed,” Timonere said. “They don’t believe the lights have been turned on. There’s an electrical piece that is still missing. So that once that comes in, those will be up and running.”
In addition, Timonere said that final paving and striping will be coming.
“There’s still a trench, sort of, on the east side of Main Avenue that needs to be filled in and then the road needs to be re-striped for the parking spaces that we’ve added along Main Avenue,” he said. “So, I’m really encouraged about getting that done.”
He said the city is in discussions to hold a ceremony/ribbon cutting sometime in October.
“As soon as we have that all nailed down, we’ll put that information out to council, and hopefully you can attend,” he said, noting he’s hoping to have some various officials attend. “(It) might even be a time for the governor to come out as well. Any press we can get from the Main Avenue area, we’ll try to do with that.”
He also thought it sounded like the Ashtabula Downtown Development Association would schedule “some community-type things.”
He said it would be a nice time to celebrate the downtown.
Timonere also noted that a lot of facades are getting done.
“It’s going to be transformative here in the next month,” he said.
Now that the Main Avenue sidewalks are pretty much done, council member RoLesia Holman asked about whether the city was in compliance with the sidewalks regarding the numbers of cuts for people who are wheelchair-bound or who need “walkers on wheels” to be able to get onto the ADA ramps.
“Yes, and as the spots get painted out there, there will be designated handicapped parking areas along Main Street, along Main Avenue, where those cuts are,” Timonere said “So, those will become the ADA-accessible parking areas.”
“So, we have the ratio, the number of cuts needed for wheelchair and walker, in addition to the parking areas?” Holman asked.
“The cuts by the code have to be by the parking in the handicap parking areas,” Timonere said. “So, those are where those are. They will correspond to the parking areas.”
