Plans to connect Kal-Haven Trial and downtown South Haven move ahead

For about the past year the City of South Haven has been working on a plan to link the Kal-Haven Trail to Williams Street and the downtown. That work is paying off with recent news the city is in line for $750,000 for the project.

Funding made available through the Michigan Strategic Fund of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation has been tentatively approved and City Manager Brian Dissette says it is a near certainty the funds will come through.

Final approval is expected in the next 60 days, pending the city formalizing its contract with the state and following the required reporting procedures, Dissette says.

In the past year South Haven’s Downtown Development Authority developed a streetscape plan that identified the Williams Street link to the Kal-Haven trail as an important project. The city sees the improvements that are to be made as key to connecting the Kal-Haven Trail and downtown.

The grant will help the city pay for the creation of bike lanes in both directions so that bikes and cars will not have to share the same lanes. Parking will be changed from slanted to parallel. Roads and sidewalks will be repaved and widened. Electrical utilities will be buried and the landscape redesigned. Curbs also will be made handicapped accessible in compliance with American Disabilities Act requirements.

Dissette says the city anticipates use of the trail will increase, “which results in increased economic opportunity for local residents and businesses.”

Writer: Kathy Jennings
Source: Brian Dissette, South Haven