In refocusing efforts that began in earnest about four years ago — and that had been discussed for far longer than that — the Warren Town Council received an update last week on projects intended to beautify two areas of high pedestrian traffic uptown.

The areas include the intersection of the East Bay Bike Path, where it meets Child Street and Railroad Avenue (near the Del’s Lemonade), and a nearby alleyway that, at one time, had ambitiously been targeted for a dramatic revamping into the “Warren Arts Walkway”, which would have provided a finely-manicured walking path that stretched north from Child Street to the entrance of the Imago Art Gallery on Market Street.

The Town had Fuss & O’Neill complete an engineering report done and renderings were completed from Union Studios to fully conceptualize the scope of the project, but according to Town Councilman Brandt Heckert, the bids that came in were far beyond the scope of what could be afforded. Then Covid hit, and the project went to the back burner.

But after last month when Erin DeThomas, Chair of the Warren Arts and Culture Commission, was granted approval to install a rotating sculpture exhibit in the same area of Railroad Avenue, Heckert said it sparked interest in the improvement project once again.

“There’s no one that doesn’t want that area to be nicer,” he said on Monday. “When you talk about the importance of that area and how it could be a real stimulus for the town, there are thousands of people that ride their bikes through town and don’t really know where they are. We want people to know they’ve arrived in Warren and that they’re a block off from Main Street and a couple blocks off from the waterfront.”

Town Planner Bob Rulli said during the Council meeting last week that he had walked the Railroad Avenue site with new DPW Director Brian Wheeler, and that they were optimistic about moving forward with some improvements to the area, including some improved lighting, a solar-powered bench, and perhaps removing some of the brick and installing pavers utilizing DPW resources and not requiring an outside contractor.

“Perhaps the scope will be something less than we initially anticipated but we think in both areas we can make some short-term improvements that are going to make that much more accessible and attractive to people,” Rulli told the Council. “[Brian Wheeler] believes there is a large amount of the work that the DPW can actually do which will save us a considerable amount of money and allow us to do some of the things that we wanted to do initially at both the locations.”

Although he said he was ultimately in favor of beautifying the area, Councilman Joe DePasquale vented some frustrations regarding other areas of town that he feels have been neglected.

“This may come across as a criticism and if it does, I apologize up front. I love doing more things, but I’m very, very concerned with the amount of weeds, sand on sidewalks, trees that are growing in the way. I’ve sent a list a dozen times. I’m not that interested in expanding more things right now,” he said. “We need to focus on what we have. I’m in favor of expanding but we really need to step it up.”

Town Manager Kate Michaud said that making the kind of improvements proposed here are a step in that direction of being able to better maintain the town’s public areas.

“The goal is to create a low-maintenance landscape — things that do not require intense landscaping because we do not have a large staff and we will probably not have a large staff in the near future because we have budget limitations,” she said. “So the more we can take the existing landscape and make it more efficient and lower maintenance requirements, the more we can take the time and address other things that do need to be done.”

Although the Council did not take any action at the meeting last week, it was merely an update on the project, Rulli said that there exists a $60,000 grant and some additional money from a Take It Outside grant that the town had received which could accomplish some of the scope of work.

“Once people see some progress I think it will help stimulate more interest and get people willing to contribute, businesses willing to contribute,” Heckert said on Monday. “My intention is to try to stay on top of this and see if we can keep pushing the boulder forward, so to speak.”