“They have approached us about participating in the addition of snow melt.”
Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. president Tim Kelly says installing snow melt at the Civic Theater is part of a bigger plan to remove an areaway encroaching on the sidewalk around the Division Avenue building:
“The city has been working with property owners along the street to remove existing areaways. They can create safety hazards and limit what can be built on top.”
The Downtown Development Authority, a state grant, the city, and the theater are paying the $880,000 total cost of the areaway removal and snow melt installation project.
“That snow melt will be owned and maintained by the Civic.”
The snow melt system will heat the sidewalks from Library Street to Division Avenue to Monroe Center and will be installed while Division Avenue is closed for reconstruction.
“They would complete it as part of the current construction project so it won’t have to shut the road down again.”
And it will extend the snow melt system already in place on Monroe Center,
“It’s great they are adding it near the existing system, so we start to add more of a connected continuous walk.”
