City outlines $300,000 request and ACHD credit to add medians, art and low-maintenance landscaping on Ustick and Lindner

Mike Barton, presenting roadway landscaping concepts, told council the projects cover two Ustick Road segments and Lindner Road and were designed from the city's 2023 landscape matrix to be low maintenance and traffic-calming. He said ACHD will provide a fixed credit to the city for stamped-concrete median elements (about $131,000–$132,000 per bid), leaving an estimated city supplemental cost of roughly $62,000 for the currently-bid segment and annual maintenance of about $6,500.

Barton described the Lindner Road concept as including median trees, low-water-use plants, boulders and a public-art element (metal bird sculptures with low-voltage uplighting) funded with MAPS-type dollars, saying the artwork design had been developed through a public process. He told council implementation of the three projects would require a one-time budget request of approximately $300,000 and an estimated $8,250 in ongoing annual maintenance for all three segments combined.

Councilmembers asked whether maintenance would be handled by in-house crews or the existing landscaping contract; Barton said maintenance is contracted and the city recently rebid a contract that covers about 60 sites and costs roughly $350,000 per year, and that ACHD partnership could reduce that bill modestly. Council asked whether the $300,000 request was net of ACHD credit (answer: yes) and whether impact fees could be used (answer: not impact-fee eligible; the work would come from general fund/budgeted resources). Several councilors expressed support for the consistent, lower-maintenance design approach and for returning with cost-share agreements and contract specifics so the council could consider adding the items to a future consent agenda.