CENTERVILLE -- Centerville City is putting plans together for a Parrish Lane redesign in a rush to keep up with Wal-Mart's groundbreaking. Cory Synder with the Centerville Planning Commission presented a redesign proposal for Parrish Lane at Tuesday's city council meeting. The proposal looks at a combination of old style fencing, landscaping and lighting. The fencing would not be continuous. "This is a modern interpretation of what Parrish Lane used to be," said Synder. "Instead of having fences with sheep behind them, we will have fences with stores behind them." Synder's proposal involved rock posts with rail fences. There would be two or three fences along with vegetation in separate sections of the Parrish lane sidewalk. "We want to make it memorable and make the city more attractive," said Synder. "This ties into the past and the present."

City council members were enthusiastic about creating a historic feel along the city's corridor.

"Parrish Lane was not an old downtown, it was an old farm road," said Blaine Lutz, Centerville City Financial Planner. "They are trying to bring back that type of feel."

The city will look forward to additional insights and ideas at one of their next council meetings.

"We are going to have a landscape architect give us a proposal and the costs involved with the project," said Lutz. "Then we will have him help us put the ideas together for locations and spacing of the fences."

While decisions on the lighting scheme, fence design, and landscaping are still in the initial phases, city officials are hoping to have a resolution in time for Wal-Mart's groundbreaking in June.

"The most urgent decision is the lighting," said Lutz. "We need to give Wal-Mart a specific type of lighting to go in front of their lot."

Wal-Mart consented to contributing funds for street lighting in their development agreement with the city.

If concept landscape and fence designs are incomplete before the big box breaks ground, those changes would be incorporated later on, according to Lutz.

Funding for the project would come from RDA and Wal-Mart. The proposed project will take place along Parrish Lane and 400 West as far as Porter Lane.

sclarke@davisclipper.com