Sidewalk talk

There's been a lot of talk going around town about the brick sidewalks being replaced with stamped concrete. Luckily, this won't be happening, but believe it or not, it was being considered. The Capital and Infrastructure Committee for the BID actually had discussed this.

The total area of brick sidewalks has been determined to be 170,000 square feet, about the size of a Wal-Mart. Currently the loose bricks are causing people to trip and fall and a lot of the problem is tree roots pushing up the bricks, but it's also a case of shoddy workmanship done by the crews who took up the sidewalks to rewire for the new lighting. They were never replaced properly.

Maintaining the "warm village feel" was important and luckily the stamped concrete was determined to be much more costly than actual bricks, probably the reason bricks have been used for hundreds of years all over the world.

Concrete slabs would have caused major problems in the future where bricks are easily removed when needed. The BID committee learned that a compacted sand base, together with a mortar mix application toward the top of the base installation would resolve many of the brick movement problems.

A watered in sand and mortar mix provides some of the rigidity that is needed to keep the brick pavers in place. Additionally, the recommendations call for a high iron content brick paver, with a greater depth of at least two to three inches. Much of the current brick paver installation is thinner than recommended, causing it to come loose if any gap exists between one brick and another.

Mosaic inlays, sort of like you see at CocoWalk, were also discussed. They could be added at various intersections, adding a nice artistic feature.

Architects will be involved to help with tree root wells, which will help the roots and cause less disruption of the bricks.