(KNZA)--The Hiawatha City Commission was urged Monday evening to keep the brick streets in the 100 blocks of  North 6th and 7th for now instead of paving them with concrete.

Ian Schuetz, who was part of the brick streets committee, urged the Commission to amend the scope of the bid package already sent out for the street improvements to be funded by a ½ cent sales tax approved by voters in 2016.  

 “I think that if we forfeit the possible preservation of this big section right now, it's both premature and actually unnecessary. The Commission, in the past, and through the survey that was put out, has already sort of acknowledged that the brick, in general terms, is a valuable part of the downtown aesthetic. I think it would then follow that the goal should be to retain as much as possible within practical limits.”   

Schuetz says he recently became aware that the two blocks were among those to be paved with concrete.

The Commission previously agreed to keep the brick streets around the courthouse square, and the city has received a grant to help fund restoration of the brick street in the 600 block of Utah.  

Schuetz says the brick streets in the 100 blocks of North 6th and 7th make up about 40 percent of those in the downtown, and he doesn’t want to see them condemn before they have too.

“I think that if we can just grant those two blocks a stay of execution for now, kind of hold off and then see where we're at. After we do Utah Street we'll have a really good idea how much brick we're going to have to replace, and so forth, and then the next time we take the grant we can always concrete them later. In the scope of how long it's going to take them to do these projects, by the time we know what we need to know to make those calls, they're probably still going to be working on other streets here. You know the concern about economy of scale for those two blocks not getting in, I think we can probably still get a pretty good deal if the contractors are in town.”

City Administrator Mike Nichols said if the Commission decided to remove the two blocks, the project engineer would have to issue an addendum to all bidders.

Voicing concerns about possible additional costs, the Commission voted unanimously, following discussion, to stay with the original project scope.