GRANITE QUARRY — Granite Quarry Mayor Brittany Barnhardt has called a special meeting Thursday, Jan. 12, to discuss designs and improvements to the town square and the parks and recreation master plan.

The town will be working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation to go over concepts. A consultant was also hired to see how much of the improvements the town has proposed in their downtown master plan are possible.

“They’ll basically be doing a presentation to the board on Thursday to see what might be possible from our funding and the state’s funding standpoint specifically,” said Town Manager Larry Smith. “From that, it will help them get input on how to proceed from there as far as doing anymore planning, costing and other details. They’ll also be covering the parks and recreation to take a look at any potential next steps to get some improvements moving on the parks and recreation master plan.”

At the Monday board of aldermen meeting, the town passed a capital project ordinance to fund the projects. Smith said the board has allocated $959,916 to start with. Smith said additional funds could be added as the town pursues state and other grants.

“The town board will adopt the capital project ordinance to basically get our funding started,” Smith said.

Granite Quarry’s town square is located at the intersection of Highway 52/Salisbury Ave. and Bank St. The intersection is referred to as the “100 percent intersection.” Existing conditions of the intersection based on the 2016 Granite Quarry Downtown Master Plan include overhead utilities, painted crosswalks on two sides and plants on each of the corners.

The master plan was updated in 2019 with proposed improvement to the town square’s infrastructure including:

• Installing crosswalks on all four sides.
• Maintaining the existing bike lanes and paint them in contrasting color of the road.
• Include the Carolina Thread Trail logo to connect the local trail system system to the regional trail system.
• Include directional sign systems and trailblazers at each corner.
• Install flowers and trees in the four planters at each corner.
• Consideration of burying the utilities under the intersection.
• Installation of mast arm traffic lights to mitigate the “plethora” of utility lines.