City seeks grant to send utilities underground

By KATE McCARDELL KERN
Published: July 9, 2008

A cleaner look may be in store for the area behind the Jackson County Courthouse if the City of Marianna acquires a Community Development Block Grant that it invested in at the Wednesday Marianna Commission meeting.
The commission voted unanimously to pay $38,000 to David Melvin Engineering to develop plans to move the overhead utilities on Jackson Street underground, as well as resurface part of the road.
The money, which would not be refurbished in the grant, would most likely come out of the city’s CRA.
“We gotta start somewhere,” said Commission John Roberts.
The downtown revitalization project, said city manager Jim Dean, would focus on areas east and south of the courthouse, including a portion of Jackson Street and on Madison Street toward the Jackson County Emergency Operations Center.
The actual chance of getting the CDBG for the project is 50 to 60 percent.
According to David Melvin, once the city makes an investment in the project, the more likely the chance is of getting the grant.

Sign ordinance may be amended
Other parts of Marianna may be seeing more signage with the approval to draft an ordinance amendment that would give businesses more leeway in special signage.
According to Dean, one recommended adoption is to allow A-frame signs at a size of 3½ feet by 2 feet on sidewalks, as long as the signs don’t impede with walking traffic.
The other amendment would be to allow businesses to display for special sale events five days at a time, one time per quarter, after obtaining the proper permit.
Once the ordinance is drafted, the city would review it at another commission meeting and vote whether or not to advertise the proposed ordinance.
If the ordinance is approved for advertisement, it would eventually come back to the commission for final approval.

Board okays concrete batch plant development order
Another item on the agenda was a major development order for Griffin Sand & Concrete Company. With unanimous approval from the commission, construction will begin for the concrete batch plant on the south side of Auction Drive.
While construction is able to begin at the concrete plant, the preliminary plats were just approved for a series of townhomes on a parcel of land of Kelson Avenue.

City to consider new townhouse plats

College Pointe Townhomes would be a 13 unit single family attached townhouse lot subdivision, according to a commission agenda memo.
The two-story duplex-style townhomes would be sold between $130,000 to $160,000.
A proposed homeowners association would maintain all roadways, utilities, a swimming pool, storm water facility and other infrastructure, said the memo.
The location of the subdivision would be just west of SunTrust Bank off Kelson Avenue.

(See more on the Marianna City Commission meeting online Thursday and in Friday’s print edition of the Floridan.)