Folks planning to attend the city's upcoming summertime festivities downtown may want to double-check event schedules.

East Washington Street starting at the Public Square will be getting a serious makeover in the coming months.

In particular, the Taste of Shelby County event on June 7 and the Wine Walk on June 21 will be impacted by the East Washington project, so there may be some changes, according to city officials.

The Shelbyville Common Council's Downtown Projects Committee and Mayor Tom DeBaun met Tuesday morning in City Hall, 44 W. Washington St., to talk about easing the impact the project will have on businesses and residents.

“We've made it very clear to the contractors that maintenance of traffic is important, both vehicles and pedestrians. Understanding that Franklin and Jackson Streets aren't available, we still understand the front of the building is imperative. So that was part of the discussion as well,” DeBaun said.

There's a pre-construction meeting next week between city officials and staff of Beaty Construction Inc. of Boggstown to talk over the East Washington Street renovation. The city will stress the need to keep businesses accessible, he added.

Beaty won the project with a base bid of $2.36 million. It was not the lowest bid, but Olco Inc, the low bidder, didn't meet the project specs, DeBaun said.

In addition, Ratio Architects, the project designer, is to have an office here open a couple of days each week to address questions and concerns.

And City Engineer Matt House said Tom Zimmer, a professional engineer, is due to start knocking on doors along East Washington to talk with business and property owners about the project.

In addition to the street and sidewalk construction, DeBaun said the city will look into upgrading telecommunications along the street.

“Yeah, we'll be replacing concrete from curb to storefront; the asphalt will be a mill and replace. It won't be a full-depth reconstruction. And the other discussion we'll have is that, when we're doing the replacement of sidewalks, we'll be talking about doing conduits for fiber down through there,” he said.

The first part of the East Washington renovation, going from the Public Square to Pike Street next to the Post Office, is to be finished by Oct. 31, said House, the city engineer.

The remainder of the work, going more than one block from Pike Street to the railroad tracks just past Noble Street, is to be done by the end of the construction season, he said.

Prior to the Downtown Projects meeting Tuesday, the city's Board of Works met in City Hall and voted to have the city clean up a property at 102 McKinley St. and bill the owner.

The board thanked the owner of 508 Tom Van Arden Dr. who appeared in person, and who had cleaned up his property at the city's request.

Also, the Board of Works voted to give a parcel of land the city owns next to the intersection of East State Road 44 and Interstate 74 to the city's Redevelopment Commission.

The parcel is adjacent to a large tract of land commonly known as the Presbyterian property.

Recently, the Redevelopment Commission bought the Presbyterian property. The Board of Works wanted to place the city-owned, 10-acre parcel under the commission's authority as it seeks to develop the overall site.

And the board was reminded that the city's annual spring heavy trash pickup will take place the week of April 1 through April 5.

No recycling will be picked up during that week.