Wide sidewalks and street trees like these are the goal for West Davis. Photo courtesy of Good Space

Wide sidewalks and street trees like these are the goal for West Davis. Photo courtesy of Good Space

This time next year, West Davis should have a new look.

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The city is spending nearly $1 million to create continuous sidewalks along the corridor, from Montclair to Zang.

A design contract is expected to be awarded this month based on recommendations in the City Design Studio’s report detailing the consensus from neighborhood meetings and goals for the street.

Davis is a thoroughfare for cars, and the street also needs a “generous sidewalk through-way” to give it more life, the City Design Studio report states.

Wide, continuous sidewalks will connect nodes of activity from Bishop Arts to the Kessler Theater to Tyler Street and Winnetka Heights/Kings Highway. The report also calls for crosswalks and buffers such as trees, planters, light fixtures and benches between pedestrians and cars. Sidewalks alone, however, likely will burn the available $979,000 in TIF money, so the city is looking for other ways to fund the street’s beautification.

Some other funding already has been located. The Kessler Theater received a $60,000 grant from the North Texas Council of Governments to improve its sidewalks and streetscape. About $440,000 has been set aside for improvements at the crossing of Tyler and Kings Highway. And the plaza at Rosemont between Seventh and Davis will get a $200,000 makeover once the design work is finished sometime in the next few months.

“All these projects are happening at the same time,” says Evan Sheets of City Design Studio. “We want to look at them as one project and do them all with the same design.”

Once a design firm is hired for the project, it will be expected to gather input from the community throughout the project, Sheets says.