Aug. 21--Al Dewey of the City of Fort Morgan works to clean up the trim around one of the One Hundred Eleven Trees memorial plaques that were being reinstalled in the sidewalk along the 300 block of Main Street on Friday morning. Trees are scheduled to be planted in the downtown project area as early as next week as the project reaches its final stages. (John Brennan/Fort Morgan Times)

Nearly 60 new trees should soon be planted along Main Street in Fort Morgan, and recognition of the city's downtown improvement project is also likely to start growing.

The roughly $3.2 million project, scheduled for "substantial completion" by Sept. 1, will play a starring role when Fort Morgan hosts a regional conference of the Colorado Municipal League on Oct. 1.

In addition, the planning, design, execution and results of the project are expected to be submitted to various state and regional agencies and organizations -- including CML -- for recognition, City Manager Pat Merrill said.

Design and engineering firm SEH Inc., general contractor ECI Site Construction Management and the city itself plan to enter the project for consideration as an award-winning effort, Merrill said.

"Some are specific to downtowns, others are general community awards," he said.

To help highlight the downtown project during the CML conference, the city will move its annual utility department community barbecue to City Park on the day of the gathering. Approximately 60 muncipal officials from the northeast region of Colorado are expected to attend the CML meetings.

"That's a great weekend, too, because Friday (Oct. 2) is Fort Morgan's homecoming, with the game and the parade down Main Street on Friday and the homecoming dance on Saturday," Merrill said.

Merrill plans to invite delegates from the CML conference to attend the community barbecue, which will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the downtown project at 2 p.m. on Oct. 1.

"Key players" in the downtown project, including city staff from the streets, utilities and other departments as well as representatives of ECI and SEH, will be recognized during the ceremony, Merrill said.

Fort Morgan officials and staff will also take the visiting CML officials on tours of the project area and explain what was accomplished and how, he said.

The project remains on budget, Merrill said, and should be almost completely finished by the Sept. 1 target date.

"So far we've done very well, nothing big has come up," he said. "Except removing that huge old flagpole post in the middle of Main Street."

Workers uncovered a massive concrete block in the intersection of Main and Beaver Avenue that once supported a 100-foot flagpole which stood there in the early 20th century.

One thing unlikely to be completed by the end of this month is the new, decorative "mast and post" traffic signals, which have been ordered but have an exceptionally long lead time, Merrill said. He expects those to be completed within a couple of weeks of Sept. 1, and the Main Street intersections in the project area will remain four-way stops until the new traffic lights are installed and operational.

"Those are going to look incredible," Merrill said of the decorative traffic signal setups.

The trees are expected to be delivered and planted as early as next week, and will include 34 trees with three-inch diameter trunks to be planted along the sidewalks of Main Street, and another 22 two-inch diameter trees that will be planted in the bulb-out plazas at the intersections, Merrill said.

City parks workers will also plant some perennial shrubs and flowers on the plazas in the spring, he said.

-- Contact John Brennan at editor@fmtimes.com.

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