Much of the infrastructure work, including pedestrian safety improvements, crosswalks, bump-outs and roadway resurfacing, are largely complete. The city hired civil engineering firm The Kleingers Group to design the streetscape project in 2021, with the goal of enhancing safety, walkability and connection from residential neighborhoods to downtown.
“The next step was actual placement of those mid-block crosswalks and bump outs and some improvements to that infrastructure, and with that came some of the streetscape, landscape stuff, some of the actual beautification,” Bellbrook City Manager Rob Schommer said. “So that’s where we’ve got the bulk of the hardscape and infrastructure stuff done.”
Several years and road projects later, Bellbrook’s focus this year is not only on shaping its “small-town friendly” image, Schommer said, but also on improving water systems in the city.
“The community supporting the public safety levy, that allows us to ... pay attention to all the other things that we were on track for, and that’s centralizing and beautifying our downtown ... really focusing on the identity of Bellbrook and investing in the safety of our water infrastructure and our roadways.”
Bellbrook is planning to engage engineering work this year to address concerns about PFAS, or so-called “forever chemicals.” Bellbrook is in line to receive a total of $2.7 million in settlement money from chemical manufacturers including 3M and DuPont, which will go towards figuring out which method of removing PFAS from its water would work best for the city’s water systems. Bellbrook sued companies implicated in PFAS contamination in 2022.
“Compliance standards (for PFAS) are newly and continuously developed. So as they engage those, that’s where they’re putting in methods to say, ‘Okay, you need to make sure that levels are under X,’” Schommer said.
While PFAS levels in Bellbrook water have never reached levels of concern, Schommer said, the city has detected the forever chemical occasionally in city wells. The improvements will also soften the city’s water in the bargain, he said.
“We’ve received monies already, close to a million ... and that’s what we’re going to be hiring the water engineers to determine, is: what’s going to be best suited for our plan ... whether it’s a reverse osmosis, whether it’s a press filtration, whatever it might be.”
The remaining streetscape work is largely aesthetic work, Schommer said.
“So the next phase is more of the, shall we say, beautification and environmental stuff, so the signage, wayfinding, the identity, the branding, the tying in of the look and walkability and identity of Bellbrook when you drive into downtown,” Schommer said.
The city also recently made changes to its Community Reinvestment Area, which encompasses the majority of the small downtown, and established a Community Entertainment District, which aims to encourage new service and dining establishments.
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