By Paul Orazietti, BIA Executive Director
What do you think of when you hear the word “back alley”? Do you think of a dark scary road at night that is poorly lit between two blocks of buildings? A place where the delivery trucks and trash containers go, and maybe where criminals lurk? And doesn’t it seem that those garbage containers are a great place for people to dump their unwanted items like old TV’s, couches, construction leftovers from a recent renovation.
The King Street Alley project is a new vision created by the City and the Cloverdale BIA to beautify and re-purpose the parking lot on 176A St (formerly known as King St) at 57A Ave. Initial plans include the installation of a Electric Vehicle Charging station, reorienting the parking spaces with new stripes, add more lighting on wooden posts in the alley, new planters, benches, historic storyboards plus electrical boxes. The vision for the alley is to name it after the original historic road, add a mural, and signage and lighting on the building outlines to have it used for public recreation and a venue for Cloverdale Town Centre events like a newly proposed 2019 movie night. Since closing roads is expensive and disruptive, the thought is that the new parking/park could be used for more community events like expanding the Cloverdale Market and Cloverdale Bed Races. The idea here is to make the parking lot more efficient, safer and encourage people to stop and spend more time in the downtown. Stay tuned more news to follow!
More info to be posted soon!