Market Street reopens
Traffic returns as Clinton nears completion of 17-month project
-
On Tuesday morning, five days after the ceremony celebrating the pending reopening of Market Street to motor vehicles, the barricades were finally down and traffic was again flowing after a 15-month shutdown for renovations. - G. Chambers Williams III
-
Clinton City Manager Roger Houck outlines the improvements made on Market Street during the recent $9.9 million makeover project, speaking to a crowd gathered Friday morning for a re-opening ceremony. - G. Chambers Williams III
-
Clinton City Manager Roger Houck outlines the improvements made on Market Street during the recent $9.9 million makeover project, speaking to a crowd gathered Friday morning for a re-opening ceremony. - G. Chambers Williams III
Clinton celebrated the rehabilitation of Market Street and its impending re-opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Friday morning, after a shutdown lasting nearly a year-and-a-half.
Although the event was billed as the official re-opening of the city’s main downtown commercial street, the actual removal of barricades and allowing of traffic to resume was delayed until Tuesday morning, City Manager Roger Houck.
Those barricades, which were gone by Tuesday morning, were still in place on Monday as workers in a bucket truck completed installation and wiring of the new downtown clock. The clock stands on the south side of Market Street near the entrance to the new Pearl Alley pedestrian walkway that links Market to Commerce Street.
“Two weeks from today the [downtown] project should be completed,” Houck said. “We still need to put up the speakers on the lights poles to play holiday music, and there is still one crosswalk on Main Street to finish, along with repaving of Main.
“We’re also adding some parking spaces on Cullom Street and Freddy Fagan Way, and there will be 12 spaces on Market Street from Main to Cullom,” he said.
“In total, we will have 18 parking spaces on Market, three on Fagan and five on Cullom,” he said.
The city does not intend to put the old parking meters back up, and has not ordered any new ones, Houck said.
“We’re still trying to come up with a new system,” Houck said, primarily to help prevent people — mostly downtown workers — from taking up the spaces for the whole day, he said.
The city’s ribbon-cutting event was held at 9 a.m. Friday, in conjunction with Historic Downtown Clinton and the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce.
Later in the day, a free concert was held in the historic downtown area beginning at 4:30 p.m.
But Houck said a heavy thunderstorm that began at 8 p.m. forced the headline event to be moved inside the Apple Blossom Café, out of fear of the lightning.
Two weeks ago, Market, Commerce and Cullom streets were completely repaved with asphalt, as were parking areas behind the buildings on the north side of Market Street.
Last week, workers were putting the finishing touches on the new sidewalks, lights and planters along Market Street. The lights, on decorative posts, were turned on, as well.
Repaving was the last big part of the $9.9 million project that began in February 2025, and was to last 17 months.
The project included new water and sewer lines, along with the new sidewalks and landscaping. The big downtown parking lot on Commerce Street is also scheduled for re-paving.
Downtown merchants say they’re excited about the future as Market Street reopens with the extensive improvements.
