PADUCAH, Ky. (WSIL)-- Nathan Truitt usually comes to the Paducah riverfront on his lunch breaks to hear the sounds of people enjoying nature and the water.Â
“But it's certainly nice for me to be able to just kind of pick a spot down here to sit for a few minutes while I'm kind of resting from my workday,� Truitt said.
But soon, the sounds of nature and traffic passing by on the street behind could be temporarily replaced with drilling while the city has an Archaeological survey completed.
Paducah’s Engineering Project Manager Melanie Townsend says the city is completing the survey for its Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Grant Project.
They have a construction company drilling up soil samples and are looking for possible Native American Artifacts in the areas they will be building.
“With any large project and with any project with federal funds, you have to do environmental assessments,� Townsend said.
The city is almost done with the final steps of its assessments, and after the survey, they will put the project out for bids.
But Townsend says if they find any artifacts it could impact the project, and they would have to consult the Kentucky State Historic Preservation Office and the Osage Nation. But they hope to finish this legacy project in late 2026.
“The building project is a riverfront pier for our excursion boats. So we have the river boats that come in,� Townsend says the project will focus on redesigning the pier, also making it more ADA accessible. “We will be doing some park-like improvements up on the top, near the transient boat dock.�
The city hopes the upgrades will continue to attract returning travelers like Cyntia, who visiting with her husband from Edmonds, Washington. She likes seeing how the downtown area has changed.
“The downtown definitely has more going on. Before, we had to stay way out because there was no place to stay right in town,� Cynthia says. “So it's nice to be able to stay close in town, kinda walk and wander and see what's changed. It's really pretty here."
Like Cynthia, Truitt hopes the new changes will bring more green space.
“When you kind of head this way between this area and that dock, it's really kind of where it'd be nice to see them work on,� Truitt says. “It really kind of shifts dramatically in terms of how nice it is.�
Townsend says the city has been working on the project since 2019 when they first received the 10.4 million dollar BUILD Grant, and the surveying is the final step of the project before construction can begin.
Townsend says the surveying should take a week to complete depending on the weather, and should not interfere with access to downtown businesses or traffic.Â
