LULA — Aesthetic improvements are coming to downtown Lula, making the area more user-friendly for evening use.
At the top of that list of improvements are new decorative lights that will be elevated in Lula Veterans Park to illuminate not only the park, but also the sidewalks serving surrounding businesses.
City Manager Dennis Bergin showed one of the new light fixtures to those who attended Monday night's city council work session.
"City council wanted to put a new light system in, so we're excited about that," Bergin said. "Hopefully the lights will go up within the next week."
Bergin said the lights are not just for the benefit of Lula Veterans Park, but will help those visiting businesses downtown, including At the Tracks Restaurant and Napoli's, both of which are open at night.
"It helps the downtown area, encourages folks to come down even in the late evening and utilize that, so that's encouraging," Bergin said.
Another planned improvement is new flowers.
"We do some things seasonally anyway, and one of them is flower planting, so we're looking at that," Bergin said.
While flower planting is a seasonal thing, city leaders are looking at larger landscaping issues.
"We've also looked at some of the landscaping that's matured to the point that it's become a problem, and that's the trees," Bergin said. "I think we've talked about that any number of times. Everybody loves how pretty the trees are, but the trees we've got down there have become intrusive because of the root system, so that's a challenge."
Bergin said he's waiting for council direction on how they the city is going to proceed with resolving that issue.
During Monday night's work session, several council members said they Bergin to proceed with removal of existing trees at the park.
"Now is the perfect time, but can we get the new trees in — mature trees?" Bergin said. "And can we remove the old ones, and can we dissolve the root system, and can we do all that with everything else we've got to do? But we'll work that through."
