More North 24th Street Improvements Moving Forward

[eomaha]

Streetscape upgrade OK'd for 24th Street

The Native Omaha Days gathering next summer should showcase that the old 'hood along North 24th Street has come back to life.

The City Council helped make sure that the prediction by City Planning Director Bob Peters would come true Tuesday by approving a more than $750,000 contract for a new streetscape.

New brick sidewalks, ornamental diamond-shaped street lights and new trees are part of the new look that Kiewit Western Co. will build along 24th Street between Ohio and Grant Streets.

It's the first of three phases of a beautification project that will eventually extend south to Cuming Street.

The first section, which includes the corner of 24th and Lake Streets, is expected to be completed when blacks from across the country return for Native Omaha Days. The gathering is held every two years.

"I hope that they see a renaissance and rebirth," Councilman Frank Brown said.

The new sidewalks are one of several projects that have sprouted along 24th Street since the last Native Omaha Days in 2003.

Dreamland Plaza opened this summer. Money has been approved for the new Preston Love Jazz Museum and the $3.3 million Family Housing Advisory Services building is rising on the southwest corner of 24th and Lake.

"It's not like a tumbleweed in the desert anymore," Brown said. "There is progress here."

[eomaha]

North Omaha Rejuvenation

Things are starting to take shape in the heart of North Omaha. Inactivity haunted the corner of 24th and Lake for years but now it is an area that is full of promise and it's providing a much-needed economic boost.

There are plans for the future on North 24th Street. A weed covered lot will one day be a shopping center. Between the brand new Dreamland Plaza and Martin Luther King Memorial, a new $3.7 million building is on the rise.

Family Housing Advisory Services will be located there and a number of other businesses and service organizations will also call the new building home.

Family Housing's Teresa Hunter says, "It will also house a couple of banks, Lutheran Family Services will be there, the John Beasley Theater and Workshop, Metro Community College will have a culinary arts place where students can become educated and prepare beautiful and scrumptious food."

The activity in the area is more than many people have seen here in a lifetime and Ms. Hunter says the new building will be good addition.

She says, "It's a testament of what can happen and how a community can be revitalized when people put their efforts together. Every corner, something is happening and it's wonderful."

All of this work is part of Mayor Fahey's effort to use the momentum of the riverfront development and move it into neighborhoods. The city is busy working on new sidewalks. The $2-million plan will also add shrubs, trees and new street lights to the area.

The project on 24th and Lake is close to being on schedule. The rainy weather slowed construction but it should be complete by the end of February.

[Coyote]

Memorial to King to be unveiled, dedicated on weekend

Before Dreamland Park, Lake Point and the Preston Love arts center, before decorative street lamps, sidewalk paving and park benches, a group of north Omahans marked the spot on North 24th Street where they would memorialize the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

That was five years ago, when the Martin Luther King Cornerstone Memorial existed only on paper, when the streetscape changes to this historic north Omaha block had not yet come.

Now the $200,000 project is wrapping up. It is scheduled for completion by the end of the week. A celebration dinner is set for Saturday, and a public unveiling is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday.

[midtown charlie]

Grant will help restore Omaha Star's building


from the world herald

Despite the absent lights, the future of the Star's one-story brick building is looking brighter than ever thanks to a $40,000 face-lift funded by the city. The City Council unanimously approved a community development block grant Tuesday to improve the exterior of the building, which was constructed in 1923.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=163 ... nd=6429523

[Coyote]

Thanks for posting this MTC, I missed this one. I am stoked that the Star will get these improvements.
This is a North Omaha landmark that we need to keep going.

[Coyote]

Park honors legacy of late publisher

The Mildred D. Brown Memorial Park is at 24th and Grant Streets, next door to the offices of the Omaha Star. Brown, who died in 1989, founded the newspaper in 1938 and ran it for 50 years. The Star, billed as Nebraska's only black-owned newspaper, is celebrating its 70th year of continuous publication. The idea for the park started 15 years ago, said Marguerita Washington, publisher and editor of the Star. It was revived, then took off as plans for North 24th Street redevelopment began taking shape over the past couple of years.