Memos at Random

CONTRACT AWARDED: Delaware Department of Transportation has selected Middletown-based Pierson Construction Co. as general contractor on second major phase of the Blue Ball highway project.. The $21.2 million contract awarded on Sept. 10 calls for rebuilding Concord Pike between Independence Mall and Augustine Cut-off, including two underpasses; relocating Weldin Road and extending it to Concord Pike just south of the mall; and reducing the six-lane temporary bypass to a two-lane road serving the new Alapocas Run State Park. The work is scheduled to begin late this year with the building of the Weldin Road connector. When that is completed early in 2004, traffic will be diverted from Concord Pike. (CLICK HERE to read previous article.)

The plan to have Philadelphia Pike designated an historic and scenic byway by state and federal government transportation departments has been expanded to include the entire road from Wilmington to the state line.

Launching what he described as an 18-month project on Sept. 6 with an informal tour by interested civic leaders, David Ames, a history professor at the University of Delaware, said the road serves as a

medium for telling the story of eastern Brandywine Hundred from Colonial times to the present. The designation being sought "transcends individual houses" along the route. he said. Still extant are structures going back as far as the early 18th Century. Designation will help to preserve them by attracting both interest and public financing for developing and implementing a unified plan for the designated corridor, he explained. It does not, however, prevent the properties from being used for a variety of residential and commercial activities.,

Byway designation originally was sought for the portion of the road through Claymont as part of the Claymont Renaissance movement. Delaware Department of Transportation bucked that application back because the agency found its scope too narrow and there was not sufficient public involvement in the process of preparing the application, according to County Councilman Robert Weiner. It now will extend to Shellpot at the foot of Penny Hill, he said, and an effort is underway to carry that as far as Brandywine Village, the section of the city

David Ames (facing the camera) makes a point about the history of Philadelphia Pike -- once known as the King's Highway -- during a tour of several of what he described as its historical assets.

along Market Street just north of the Brandywine. Some of Ames's graduate students will compile the necessary documentation.

Kennett and Montchanin Roads in Christiana Hundred and Pennsylvania Aavenue in the city received state designation as a scenic byway about a year ago.

PROBLEMS: Loss of farmland and other open space to development was listed by about a third of the participants as a serious problem and another quarter as a problem in a recent University of Delaware survey commissioned by 'Livable Delaware'. Runner-up, with about a reverse ratio was traffic congestion. Employment opportunities, air quality and drug and alcohol abuse followed as other concerns. On the other side of the ledger, easy accessibility to schools, stores and public facilities was given as the most satisfying aspect of life in northern Delaware by about three-fourths of the 604 people in the selective sample. That was listed as 55% participation in the survey.

The ball is bouncing back to the Brandywine School District's court. The school board apparently will have to decide after all on the fate of the property where the derelict former Channin School building stands.

County Councilman Robert Weiner confirmed that Governor Ruth Ann Minner and the Delaware Office of Economic Development have dropped plans to provide the property along Naamans Road as the site for a new office building for the Access Group, a non-profit company which finances higher education. State Representative Robert Valihura and Senator Cathy Cloutier forced that decision on behalf of the Channin Civic Association, which objected to a commercial use in the residentially zoned area. Weiner said he will follow through on a commitment and urge the county to develop the site as a venue for active recreation, primarily youth sports But he added that will likely take considerable time.

Meanwhile, Valihura told Delaforum, "the next step, in my mind, is to open a dialogue with the school board." A provision in this year's state capital spending law negated, in this case, the normal procedure for disposing of surplus state property and, in effect, took it out of the school board's hands. Any conflict that poses, Valihura said, can be resolved in the customary corrective legislation after the General Assembly reconvenes in January. "The community momentum has started towards making this school [site] parkland. Cathy and I will be working with the community to make that a reality," Valihura said. It is agreed that all concerned would like the building, which has been unused except for storage, since the late 1970s torn down.

The law's provision also refers to the Old Mill Lane School site in Liftwood, but no one has stepped forth publicly with a claim toward that property. (CLICK HERE to read previous article.)

OLD BUSINESS: The state law enacted more than six years ago to permit reorganization of New Castle County government provided for creation of an advisory board for the Community Services Department. County Council is now trying to decide whether to establish the board or seek elimination of that provision in the law.. "Not only has [the board] not met, it doesn't have any members," Council president Christopher Coons told an executive committee meeting on Sept. 2. Coons said he did not know why it has taken so long to get around to creating the board. Councilman Penrose Hollins said there evidently wasn't any pressure from Dover to act quickly. "They obviously haven't been watching," he quipped.

THE WAY IT WAS:

Delaware Avenue between Adams and Madison
Streets echoes with teen voices on autumn
mornings and afternoons in 1906,
when this post card was published,
as youngsters assembled at or left
Wilmington High School.
The school was relocated to the city's edge
in the 1960s and the original building was torn down.
The site eventually received
this high-rise office building.
Wilmington High was later succeeded by
Charter School of Wilmington.

This is another in a series of 'then and now' views of Wilmington. It draws on the extensive collection of local picture post cards accumulated by Terry Craig. Current views of the same scenes are Delaforum digital photos. See previous views in this series.


	A potpourri of miscellaneous news SCRIBBLED IN A REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK