The sidewalks in downtown Riverside may be getting a major facelift after a city council discussion and decision made this Monday.

MMS Consultants proposed to the council that the raised sidewalk where First Street/Highway 22 West and Pioneer Street meet be replaced. Glen Meisner of MMS said, “As I indicated here in the work session, I challenged our staff to take a look at the raised sidewalk and see if we should try and salvage that and put a limestone veneer on the front side and then possibly pour a sidewalk on top of the existing sidewalk. I think some of the discussions came out that there was a concern that if we did that then we would be ignoring the water and sewer services that go under the existing raised sidewalk today.”

Councilmember Ralph Schnoebelen asked whether the city would approach property owners if structural deficiencies were found underneath the raised sidewalk. Councilmember Jeanine Redlinger said, “And we may have surprises, but now is the perfect time to deal with those surprises so we don’t have them in the future. So we find them, we fix them right, and then we move on.”

Councilmember Robert Weber said he thinks the city should bite the bullet in terms of taking out the old sidewalk, and Schnoebelen said just patching the sidewalk would not suffice. The board passed a motion to let MMS design a plan to replace the sidewalk and to discuss with property owners any possible expense for structural deficiencies. MMS hopes to get the project open for letting in 2018.