Tejon Street closure in downtown Colorado Springs for final upgrade phase
Scott Harrison
COLORADO SPRINGS — Starting early Monday morning, and continuing through Friday, Tejon Street between Colorado Avenue and Kiowa Street, in the heart of downtown, will be closed to traffic.
It marks the final phase of the $8.6 million project to upgrade those two blocks, making travel safer and easier for pedestrians.
Crews began arriving at 2 a.m. to place signs and barricades for the street closure, which also includes part of Pikes Peak Avenue east and west of Tejon.
Work also includes milling and repaving of the Tejon/Pikes Peak Avenue intersection, along with striping crosswalks and placing decorative granite stones in the crosswalks.
Sidewalks within the closure will remain open to pedestrians.
The project started last spring on the block of Tejon between Pikes Peak and Colorado, before moving a block north to Kiowa.
Crews improved pedestrian access, expanded outdoor dining space, enhanced stormwater infrastructure, and added new landscaping.
Officials said that some of the crosswalk work on Pikes Peak will require occasional closures through the first week of May.
Downtown visitors who spoke with KRDO13’s The Road Warrior expressed mixed feelings about the project, saying that they like the upgrades but prefer that officials turn the two blocks into a pedestrian mall.
“I think it’s helpful, but I think it would have been better, honestly, if they just closed this block of the street,” said Tellulah Hill, a downtown employee. “It was way more convenient when the street was closed for construction than when it was open.”
The wider sidewalks come at the expense of narrower streets with little space for parking and traffic; one business owner said that makes getting deliveries difficult because the center lane, where many delivery trucks park, no longer exists.
But some merchants are looking on the bright side.
“I did not expect it to drop off as much as it did, but I’m very happy with how much it has bounced back since they have finished, said Morgan Orman, manager of the Beauty Bar Salon & Spa. “Because now, we have even more foot traffic than we did before the sidewalks were extended. And that helps out a ton.”
City parking fee revenue, the Downtown Development Authority, and a grant from the Colorado Department of Transportation funded the project; city officials hope to eventually extend the improvements farther north on Tejon.