In the Friday morning episode of Timeloop Live, Sapulpa City Communications Coordinator Lucy Lawson emphasized that the 200-day construction project to redo the main portion of historic downtown Sapulpa is not just a cosmetic upgrade.
“Dewey is getting a redesign, and we are going to have a beautiful landscape, but that’s not what ‘ReDewey’ is,” she said, calling the project by what it’s become formally known for marketing purposes as organizations like Sapulpa Main Street, the Sapulpa Chamber—yes, even Sapulpa Times—work to keep the businesses on Dewey Avenue at the forefront of the community’s mind.
“ReDewey was not brought to Sapulpa as, new pavement, new landscape, new light poles…that’s not what ReDewey is,” she said again.
“This is an infrastructure project,” she explained. “We are going to be digging four to five feet in the ground, maybe deeper than that, we’re going to take out water lines, sewer lines, gas lines, all those things are getting pulled out of Dewey.”
“We’ve seen a lot of comments about ‘it’s not broken, don’t fix it,’ and we’re not doing it because we want to, we’re doing it because we’re fixing these sewer lines,” she said.
“ReDewey is a fantastic project. It’s going to look beautiful, but it’s not just for a sidewalk or just for a roadway.”
Timeloop host Micah Choquette said the project was similar to the high school. “(School Board Member) Larry Hoover said when they were beginning the school bond project that ‘we cannot go on putting lipstick on a pig,’ and if it were only new streets and sidewalks, that’s what we would be doing. It would be lipstick on the 100-year-old pig that is downtown Sapulpa.”
“It is the idea of looking ahead to what is coming, and preparing for that, being able to do that well,” he said.
Parking is under assessment as well
One of the most surprising changes coming as a part of “ReDewey” is the removal of the parallel parking spaces between Main Street to Elm Street where it intersects with the Creek County Courthouse. Critics say that the downtown businesses will suffer due to the loss of the parking spaces.
“I don’t want anyone to think that the city doesn’t care about the loss of the parking on Dewey,” Choquette said later in the episode. “(The City Staff) very much cares about the parking.”
Part of the Dewey Streetscape Redesign includes the addition of new ADA-compliant handicapped parking spaces at each intersection—something that downtown Sapulpa has never had.
In addition, the City has had parking assessment in mind since the beginning, when the plans for a new Dewey Avenue were first created. Ultimately, the plan approved and passed in voting included the removal of Dewey Street parking in favor of meeting the other objectives: a safer, more pedestrian-friendly downtown with additional shopping, dining, and entertainment options.
Choquette promised such options were on the way. “There is another bit of construction going on right now, they wanted to do it in tandem with the Dewey Streetscape, so they could get completed about the same time—it’s going to be something like we’ve not had before, and it’s going to be amazing.”
Watch the full episode of Friday’s Timeloop below.
