St. Joseph City Commissioners are seeking a grant to help pay for improvements at the Pleasant Street Plaza.
At a Monday meeting, Assistant City Manager Emily Hackworth told them the Michigan Department of Transportation has set aside $3.5 million for the Shared Streets and Spaces Grant program to support quick-build projects to make communities more pedestrian friendly.
The city’s downtown master plan calls for better pedestrian access to the east side of Main Street, and Hackworth says sprucing up the Pleasant Street Plaza would be a good way to attract more people. What are some of the ideas?
“We’ve got some designs — very preliminary designs — that show some public seating, some tables, wider sidewalks, much more pedestrian friendly,” Hackworth said. “There’s some discussion as to whether we would want to close it off permanently or leave it open to limited traffic, and so ultimately we’ll go to the public and get some input.”
Hackworth said public engagement would be a key part of adopting a final plan.
The city is applying for $200,000 through the grant program, which wouldn’t cover such a project’s total cost.
“We’d need to look for other ways to fund the remaining portion of the cost. So that might be a budget allocation, that might be looking for other grants or donors. We would have to look to see what we could do to fill that gap.”
The preliminary cost estimate from the city engineer to redevelop the plaza is about $1.2 million, so those discussions will happen later if the city is approved for the grant.
Hackworth said with the temporary pedestrian island now near the plaza, and possibly becoming a permanent feature after MDOT’s Main Street reconstruction project, it makes sense for the season closing and use of Pleasant Street Plaza for gatherings to also become more permanent.
Commissioners approved the grant application Monday, and any work that might result would likely be in 2026.
