Plants replace pavement at Old Town Plaza

       A beautification project in the Old Town Plaza parking lot was nearing completion this week. Mike Lucas uses a small loader Oct. 18 to place a rock along
the Colorado Avenue sidewalk near 25th Street as part of
the beautification effort by Old Town Plaza and the Old 
Colorado City Security & Maintenance District. The 
plantings in the foreground replaced a plaza parking space. 
Lucas and his father, John, make up Lucas Landscaping, 
the project contractor.
Westside Pioneer photo
       The work meant the removal of a parking space, but it was well worth it, according to Judy Kasten, owner of J.A. Kasten Accounting and one of about 15 individuals who own the small shopping center at the southwest corner of 25th Street and Colorado Avenue.
       “This makes an entrance toward the plaza,” she said. “Too many people walk straight down and don't look in. This is going to catch their eye.”
       The $11,000 project cost - covering sprinklers, small to large rocks, low-water plantings and payment for a landscaper - was shared between the Old Colorado City Security & Mainten-ance District (which owns the part along the sidewalk) and Old Town Plaza (which owns the former parking space).
       The district's funds come from a special tax paid by owners of properties within its boundaries.
       There had been some district landscaping along the sidewalk, but it just consisted of “scraggly, spindly old bushes,” Kasten said. “This is the way it's supposed to look, natural, with Colorado rock.”
       For the district's advisory committee, which Kasten chairs, the work represented a trial effort to see if the landscaping style would be suitable to continue throughout the district, which goes along Colorado Avenue from 24th to 27th streets. “I think we probably will (continue it),” she said. “Everybody is pleased with it. It's very pretty.”

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