MLK Plaza Dedication Set for Aug. 28

Fraser Street is now adorned with civil rights imagery, as the Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza moves ahead to its Monday, Aug. 28, dedication ceremony. But, the project ended up costing slightly more than the budgeted $642,000. 

Borough council approved in April increasing the cost of the project by about $127,000, after poorly timed elevator repairs in the Fraser Street Garage halted work on the plaza’s construction. The plaza winds around the garage, starting from Beaver Avenue, down Fraser Street and out to Kelly Alley behind it.

One elevator is located on the Fraser Street side of the garage, facing the new Target, and was completed first. The elevator that caused problems is toward the back of the building, closer to Kelly Alley. A narrow walkway near the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County and Fasta Pasta had to be closed while the elevator was repaired, public service manager Ed Holmes said. This created a lot of pedestrian traffic. Holmes said he was required to keep a safe walkway open for residents through the plaza’s worksite while the repair took place.

“We didn’t anticipate the elevator project to interfere with (the plaza), but it did,” he said. This inconvenience slowed construction of the plaza enough to convince Caliber Contracting Services to request extra time for its completion, Holmes added.

CCS president Kevin McNulty told the council his company would need an extra month to complete the work, extending the completion date from May 31 to June 30. This extension caused the $127,000 price bump. Lower-than-anticipated costs for other projects left money in the budget to cover the excess cost.

For roughly $800,000, the plaza is a timeline of the Civil Rights movement, Holmes said. Seventeen commemorations serve as stops along a walk-through of the Civil Rights movement, with two pictures of King speaking at Penn State being the centerpiece, Holmes said.

State College resident Peter Morris said at a design meeting earlier this year that because this is named after King, it has to be special and not just designed to be a place to eat lunch.

“The important thing for this plaza, for young people, is to teach them of his legacy, and for older people, it is a reminder of that,” Morris said.

Borough council decided the MLK Plaza was the best use for the space after former mayor Bill Welch died. Borough manager Tom Fountaine said following Welch’s death in 2009, the council became interested in naming something in the former mayor’s honor and did so with the municipal building’s front plaza. With honoring community leaders in their minds, the council became interested in and decided to dedicate a plot of land to Martin Luther King Jr., as well.

This was something they had recognized a need for a long time ago, Fountaine said. On April 16, 2012, council formally passed Resolution 1066 to rename Fraser Plaza as the MLK Jr. Plaza.