Ever since last spring, traffic around Community has been inhibited by the ongoing construction on 5th Ave. and Detroit St. As the Construction has worn into September, many students have had their patience stretched, and the questions are flying around the school. What is happening and when is it going to be done?

In spring 2018, construction crews descended on 5th and Detroit, removing all the bricks that made up the road and redoing all the sidewalks in the surrounding area. They redid one end of Detroit St. in bricks, and completed paving and bricklaying half of 5th Ave over the summer (See the final design above). While the students were away, the workers also ripped up most of Community High School’s (CHS) back lawn, removing the basketball court, trees, and fence. They started putting the new back lawn design in motion. It includes a new basketball court, which is slightly wider than the old one, and a rain garden.

The project is anticipated to be done between the end of November or the beginning of December. Right now, the crews are working on the seat walls at the new back lawn plaza area. They recently completed the base work on another plaza across the street at the farmers market. This includes an outdoor dining area with modern picnic tables and eventually include terraced lights over the tables and trees surrounding them to partly isolate the plaza from the street.

A key part of the design is reusing some of the bricks from the old 5th Ave. The community expressed that they liked the historic feel of the bricks, so construction workers salvaged a many bricks as they could from the old 5th Ave and Detroit St, so that they could repave some of the new street design with the old bricks. In the sections where they repaved with new bricks, the bricks were ordered specially to look like the bricks that have been historically paved the Kerrytown District.

Another important aspect of the project is improving the stormwater management system in the area. The new planter beds in the Kerrytown Plaza have openings for stormwater runoff to filter into the soil there. The new rain gardens going on the back lawn will help manage water by Community. New infrastructure is going to reroute water from the drains to the soil, letting the ground have a chance to filter some of the pollutants out before the water flows back to the Huron River; the sandy soil that CHS is built on will help with this process.

Though it may be an annoyance for CHS students and Kerrytown businesses now, the construction is almost done, and it will benefit the area for years to come. The new outdoor dining area will benefit sales at Kerrytown and the Farmers Market, and with many locals working on the legalization of food trucks in Ann Arbor, the new venue could be a great opportunity to try some cool new food. The CHS plaza will also benefit students. There will be more space for students to eat lunch, a bigger area to play basketball and the back lawn will look like something that students can be proud to have in front of their school.