Clint DeWitt, 12, hands out candy to trick-or-treaters for the Carson Elites soccer club Friday at the Food For Thought fun zone in Telegraph Square Friday.
More than 250 Carson City residents braved the sporadic rain showers on Friday to celebrate the completion of the redesigned and reconstructed downtown Carson Street.
Mayor Bob Crowell promised the crowd he’s keep the ribbon cutting brief to squeeze it in during a lull in the rains and he did just that. Starting promptly at noon, it was all over in a hair under 10 minutes and before the next round of precipitation.
“A lot of you here remember when this was a federal highway,” he said. “U.S. 395.”
He said the redesigned Carson Street with bike lanes, wider, more pedestrian friendly sidewalks, grassy areas, trees and other plants along both sides and numerous benches will be a game changer for downtown.
He thanked the businesses in downtown for, “putting up with this.”
Many of those businesses suffered major disruptions of their customers’ ability to even get to them.
“We should all remember to come downtown and spend money at these businesses,” he said, a line that drew loud applause from the numerous business people in the crowd.
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who was raised in Carson City, said his mother told him this was the only paved street in town when she was a child.
The project was finished just in time for Saturday’s Nevada Day Parade.
“When my horse comes down this street tomorrow, we will christen this street,” quipped Heller.
Jeff Bean of Q&D Construction, which built the project in just seven months, also thanked the downtown businesses saying, “they put up with a lot.”
But as of Friday at noon, Mike Riggs of the Downtown Business Association said, “we are open for business and so excited.”
The project cost about $11 million and reduced the four-lane Carson Street to two lanes with a center turn lane along with the other amenities designed to make it more bike and pedestrian friendly along with replacing aging water and sewer lines. In addition to the street project between William and Fifth streets, the work included turning the final block of Third Street between Mom and Pop’s and the Firkin & Fox into the Bob McFadden Plaza. While that eliminated a dozen parking spots, the work actually added 25 new spaces on Carson Street itself.