Photo by Sam McIntosh

Downtown Riverside has seen a facelift this summer in its downtown streetscape project.

The first phase was completed at the end of June for the $1.7 million project, redoing the raised sidewalks on First Street between Washburn and Greene Streets. Mayor Allen Schneider shares what work is being done currently, “Now that RAGBRAI’s over, we’re working on another couple blocks of that raised sidewalk. Anybody who’s been to Riverside has probably seen that we’ve got traffic controls in place, and we’ve gotten a lot of the sidewalk torn out in front of some buildings in the downtown area. I think everything’s going pretty well there. We’ll button that up, get that completed and then there’s still a little bit of work to do on water and sewer services and an alleyway behind the downtown area, but everything seems to be proceeding as scheduled.”

Traffic is limited to one lane in segments of First Street or Highway 22 with temporary stop lights. J & L Construction is the contractor for the project which is anticipated to be completed by the end of September.