COLUMBIA, S.C. — Columbia City Council voted to approve a construction contract for its Harden Street improvement project.
Columbia City leaders said this project has been in the works for a few years but ran into a funding issue during the design process.
“We’re really excited about moving this project forward. It’s a project we’ve been working on and designing for quite some time several years,” Clint Shealy is the assistant city manager.
Columbia Water is the agency that requested the contract approval. The project will implement pedestrian safety improvements like raised medians, crosswalks, and appearance.
“A lot of foot pedestrian activity there. We had applied for federal funding dollars that are administered through SCDOT several years ago and had been awarded about a million and a half dollars to do the project,” Shealy said.
The project is at the intersection of Harden and Taylor streets where Benedict College and Allen University meet. It’s where Shaquan Smalls is a sophomore at Benedict College, he says he walks across the intersection at least once a week.
“I most definitely fell like the improvements will make things more easier. I’m not saying it’s unbearable right now but I feel like it would definitely make things a lot more easier,” Smalls said.
Those improvements couldn’t have happened sooner. Shealy said one of the hold-ups was funding after the city was about $400 thousand dollars short of covering the project.
“We applied to our county transportation committee to use some of the gas tax money from DOT and were awarded a little over $400 thousand dollars to be able to complete the project,” he said.
Shealy adds the construction is expected to start end of April or early May.