Edhat Staff
By the edhat staff
Santa Barbara architect Jeff Shelton, along with Bengal Engineering, will revamp the popular State Street undercrossing with wider sidewalks and enhanced bike lanes using his signature design style.
The Santa Barbara City Council voted Tuesday to unanimously approve the $11 million budget for the redesign.
The area between Gutierrez and Yanonali streets has been identified as one of the highest concentrations of pedestrian and bicycle related collisions, according to the City’s Transportation Department. The improvments would widen sidewalks to 15 feet and change two lanes of traffic in either direction to one lane of traffic.
The project is part of the “Vision Zero” plan that aims to address areas within the city that have a greater number of collisions between vehicles and pedestrians or cyclists.
Famous Santa Barbara architect Jeff Shelton, known for vibrant colors and imaginative design, proposed bright tiled columns along the walkway, new lamp posts, and iron railings with flower designs.
The City of Santa Barbara will pony up $6.8 million for the project while a grant from the state will fund the remaining $4.7 million. The list of contractors include C.A. Rasmussen for construction, management by Filippin Engineering with the City and Caltrans, ironwork by David Shelton, and column tilework by Upton Construction.
In a statement to edhat, Jeff Shelton confirmed he was a consultant for the architectural component but Bengal Engineering should get all the credit for this project.
“The real work was done by Bengal Engineering, specifically Tom Conti and Harrison Smith. These are the professionals that made this happen,” said Shelton. “Without Bengal Engineering and the Public Works Department working together to make a needed change to the unpleasant undercrossing, none of this would happen.”
The project will take about 18 months to complete and could start as early as this Fall.
Rendering of the $11 million redesign for the 300 block of State Street (Rendering courtesy of the City of Santa Barbara)
[Ed note: This article has been updated with a statement by Jeff Shelton]
Now THIS seems like a lot of money to spend on cosmetics. $6.8 million? How about all the other infrastructure issues in town?
Now multiply that per block price by the 9 blocks the city wants to turn into a pedestrian promenade….
Will it be that much per block? If so, leave it as is and just put some paint for lanes down. This town has too much money and too many things that need to be fixed that aren’t being fixed.
I don’t know if this is the best place to spend money, but I do like the choice of Jeff Shelton to design it. His style will work well for this location.
Will his design go with the Funk Zone? There is a lot to think about. Perhaps a consultant is needed.
Ahchooo, generally, I agree re: Shelton, but I don’t like this rendering. Reminds me of the Laugh-In set — which was okay, back then, for that purpose. This is trite, to me. Bleah.
…and THEN factor in for the project going way over budget and time.
Will the redesign get rid of the urine smells? If it does, it’s worth every penny of $11.5M.
The smell of the City Council will be there for a long time. You can’t lose that very quickly.
Spend some of these millions on creating clean and safe and available public restrooms and you will eliminate the urine smells. The present attitude is that of the ostrich. Ignoring that homeless people and others have bodily functions that need facilities on the pretense that the homeless and drunks and others will go away is absurd.
No matter how much money is spent, it’ll get recovered in urine real fast in the current SB political culture which allows and facilitates that stuff.
Looks like Disneyland. Those street lights and wrought iron railings look ridiculous. I’m surprised there aren’t lollipops as the columns holding up the overpass. Maybe bubble machines inside the planters?
Great. Doesn’t make any sense how it is now, 4 lanes are so unnecessary.
Did they open the bidding to other contractors? $11 million is a lot of money, they should spend it like it’s theirs not our hard earned money. They sure seem to get things done they want to do like the private flamenco dance at the Clark Estate (where was my invite )? Why did the
retired planners that did that underpass originally , not put some thought and or design into it ?
What about the rest of State Street – the “promenade”? What about all the surveys the City keeps sending out asking for opinions about downtown configuration? And now – the undercrossing, right out of the blue.
Nothing wrong with bare concrete under an overpass and much easier to hose down. Many actual needs in the community to be wasting money on decor. If those who benefit from tourists–hotels and such–want to fund a project like this, fine, and they should also have to pay for hosing it down and general upkeep. Subway tiling would be more functional.
It’s not typical underpass, seeing as it is a main pedestrian path to downtown from Cabrillo and all those hotels. If we want tourists to walk up State Street, it makes sense to make the route attractive. But I agree, this seems awfully expensive.
What a waste of $11 million probably tax dollars.
It is fine the way it is and I definitely dislike the work of the designer. Poor Santa Barbara! Ugh!!!