By Brian Trompeter
Landscape planters along Vienna’s two main commercial streets, Maple Avenue and Church Street, will not receive replacement plantings just yet, as the Vienna Town Council still needs to iron out details with a contractor.
The Council on March 20 was set to approve an up-to-$600,000 expenditure with LSG Landscape Architecture. The company was to design and install landscaping for 81 planters along both sides of Maple Avenue between East Street and 213 Maple Ave., W., plus another 46 planters on both sides of Church Street between Mill Street, N.E., and Lawyers Road, N.W.
Vienna officials planned to finance the project using $300,000 in capital-improvement funds and another $300,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act moneys. The town received three bids for the project and interviewed two companies before selecting LSG Landscape Architecture, said Vienna Parks and Recreation Director Leslie Herman.
But Council member Charles Anderson questioned why the contract only specified prices for the project’s design aspects, but not for construction, including cost breakouts for individual elements.
“We have a proposal for $85,000 [for the design work] and the rest is ‘We’ll plant what we can buy you at the time,” Anderson said. “That does not sound like good contacting practice to me, I’m sorry. At the minimum, I would expect a price list that we would be locked into at this time.”
The Council voted 6-0 (member Ed Somers was absent) to postpone until the matter until April 10 meeting, so as to obtain further information. The delay likely will push back the plantings until at least August and possibly early fall, town officials said.
The contractor intends to replace understory plantings along both streets, which have been in place for about two decades, and improve or replace the soil there. The firm also would perform some root pruning, but not prune any tree limbs or replace trees as part of the project. Replacement plantings would be native or adaptive species designed to be colorful and offer seasonal interest year-round, company officials said in their bid proposal.
Existing planters on the affected stretch of Maple Avenue are irrigated, but those along Church Street are not. The town may install irrigation for the Church Street planters before the company begins its project, but that would be a separate matter outside this contract, officials said.
Town officials plan to provide information and points of contact for all potentially affected businesses and residents before the contractor begins removing plants and installing the planters.
The town also will schedule a public-engagement session at the Vienna Community Center to outline two potential landscape-design options for the project, gather residents’ feedback, answer questions and try to identify solutions for concerns raised.
Council member Howard Springsteen said he hoped the plantings could be done this summer and that further delays might cause the town to miss that window of opportunity.
“I’m just not convinced we’re going to get anything better,” he said of the contract.
Residents and businesses have approached town officials in recent months with expectations of landscaping improvements along Maple Avenue and Church Street, said Mayor Linda Colbert.
“It will help our businesses and help define our town better, I think,” she said.
