Attractive street lights have been going up along Hamilton’s Main Street, with lights that will illuminate the street itself, and lower-level ones that will brighten the sidewalks below.
City officials and business owners believe the lights will make the street more visually inviting and also make prospective evening customers to Main Street businesses feel more secure they will be safe walking along the street where businesses increasingly are filling empty buildings.
“They look like they’ll be beautiful — the outside of them, not lit up looks great,” said Brian LeVick, owner of Future Great Comics. “I’m looking forward to seeing them lit up, especially when the wintertime comes. I think it’ll look great on Main Street.”
The black metal fixtures look very vintage, “but in a good way,” LeVick said. “I would say it really beautifies Main Street. It almost reminds me of London in the 1800s. I like what I see.”
Crews from Atkins & Stang Inc. have been installing the lights, which are estimated to cost $900,000, and are paid for from Hamilton’s electric funds.
Hamilton this year has been spending $3.2 million construction project along Main and B streets, for two main reasons: Crews replaced 6- and 8-inch cast-iron water mains, about a century old, along Main Street with 12-inch ductile iron mains. They are now continuing with a “streetscape” beautification of sidewalks, which includes addition of the street lamps.
Detours this summer caused Main Street businesses significant losses of revenues, but owners are hopeful their fortunes will rise again.
The work comes in preparation of the east-west corridor becoming an entertainment district that will support the proposed Spooky Nook at Champion Mill, a planned gigantic indoor sports complex. That project, if its development agreement is approved in October, is expected to open in the summer or fall of 2021.
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