GRAND RAPIDS — Built in the 1930s, two concrete stairways in the Belknap Lookout are useful for neighbors such as Kyle Velthouse and his girlfriend, Deena Scianimanico.
“My gym is down there,” said Velthouse, pointing to the North Monroe neighborhood they overlook from their Fairbanks Street NE home. “I use it to get down to the riverfront and for exercise.”
The steps also can be a little scary, said Velthouse, 29.
Many of the 148 concrete risers are crumbling and overgrown with weeds.
“If they fixed them up, more people would use them,” Velthouse said.
City officials decided last week to repair the Fairbanks stairs and the Bradford Street stairs, which climb a hill between Prospect and North avenues NE.
Besides repairing the concrete, the $23,850 project will install a center handrail along the 62-step Bradford stairway.
The project is among the few capital improvement projects that survived budget cuts this year, said Eric DeLong, deputy city manager.
Kristi DeKraker, Neighbors of Belknap Lookout executive director, said it's about time for the fixes.
"Because of the topography of our neighborhood, you need the stairs," she said. "It's been on our radar since 1999."
Although the city fenced off the Bradford stairs for winter, neighbors walked around the barriers to use them, DeKraker said.
She said the 61st District Court sometimes sends community service work crews over to clean off the stairs.
“We’ve also asked the neighbors to help out,” she said.
City Commissioner Rosalynn Bliss, who represents the 2nd Ward, said she has pushed for the repairs since the days when she lived in the neighborhood.
“I took them down to Canal Street Park,” she said. “They’re pretty handy to have. I think they’re very important to the neighborhood.”
The stairways improve the “walkability” of the neighborhood, Bliss said.
“That’s a prime thoroughfare for the neighborhood to get down to the river,” she said.
Although residents also have asked for lights along the steps, those were not budgeted, said city engineer Mark DeClercq.
Stairs have been part of the Belknap landscape since 1914, when the city removed a streetcar route on Clancy and Coit avenues. The concrete steps were built during the Great Depression as part of the federal government's Works Progress Administration.
DeClercq said a stairway that leads to Division Avenue from Newberry Street NE has deteriorated too much for the city to consider fixing.
“There are stairs and risers that are completely missing, with trees growing up through them,” he said.
E-mail: jharger@grpress.com