By Mark S. Kenna
June 17, 2013. Per Town Council’s request, the three corners at the intersection of Depot and West King streets will be outfitted with brick pavers making the intersection uniform to the front of the Mast General Store.
Downtown Boone Development Association (DBDA) sparked this idea during their spring retreat in March. The project started on June 10 and is expected to take 5 to 6 weeks to complete, weather depending, downtown coordinator for the town of Boone, said Downtown Boone Coordinator Virginia Falck.
Many towns in North Carolina have used brick pavers for sidewalk renovations, Falck said. Towns like Hendersonville and Davidson, North Carolina, are examples. Brick was a common material used in many of Boone’s historic buildings and is still a common building material used today.
“Putting pavers in was on the agenda,” said Sheri Moretz, community relations manager for the Mast General Store and member of the DBDA. “This is a partnership between the town of Boone and DBDA. The infrastructure money in DBDA would be combined with the towns money to complete the project.”
The pavers showed up in front of the Mast General Store the same year the Doc Watson statue was erected. They were purchased and installed by the Mast General Store.
The public works department had concerns about maintaining it, Moretz said. With the wear and tear of a High County winter, putting pavers in was an experiment. Now it’s proven that pavers are more durable than people thought they were.
“All the merchants and all of us are very excited about the pavers,” Moretz said. “It will put a new shine on downtown Boone, especially with the new trees.”
This is something that has been going on, but DBDA just received funding this last year, said Town of Boone Public Works Director Blake Brown.
The cost of the project is tentative, Brown said.
“Hopefully they will like how it looks and continue on with it,” Brown said.
