The downed trees, shopping carts, old bicycles, trash and other debris that can be found along the creek do not help matters.
In the latest effort to alleviate flooding along the creek, the Jackson City Council in May authorized the mayor to enter into a contract with City Collective US, LLC.
The contract is for master planning services with a focus on the creek between North State Street and Old Canton Road. The agreement, which is not to exceed $160,000, can be paid from the $500,000 the Legislature appropriated to the city in 2023 for the costs associated with widening, straightening and clearing debris from the creek.
The contract with City Collective comes after the city in June 2023 hired Stantec Consulting Services to provide engineering services for the creek from North State Street to Old Canton Road.
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Stantec completed its preliminary hydraulic analysis and determined the proposed scope of the design project would be insufficient to address the flash flooding issues and recommended that the city explore a more extensive solution that could involve the development of a greenway along a much longer portion than initially included.
The Fondren Renaissance Foundation recommended the city hire City Collective, which has offices in Atlanta and Raleigh, North Carolina. City Collective is guiding efforts for Fondren’s comprehensive community plan known as Fondren Forward.
Blake Reeves, a Jackson native, leads both Fondren Forward and the Eubanks Creek master plan project.
Eubanks Creek is a nuisance for some residents but devastating for others when flash floods cause the creek to overflow three or four times a year, said Rebecca Garrison, executive director of the Fondren Renaissance Foundation.
Last year, Robert Lee, then interim public works director for the city of Jackson, said Eubanks Creek had two issues: Flooding on Choctaw Road and significant erosion around Sherwood Drive near Mohawk Avenue.
Scott Crawford, a retired clinical neuropsychologist who uses a wheelchair because he has multiple sclerosis, is sometimes unable to get out of his home on Choctaw Road when Eubanks Creeks rises during heavy rain.
He is impressed by City Collective’s work on Fondren Forward, which he characterizes as “thorough, easily digestible and presents a positive vision for the way we all want Fondren to grow,” and believes City Collective can produce an effective plan for the creek.
“My neighbors and I were disappointed in some of the prior Eubanks Creek studies but given how impressive City Collective’s work is so far, I’m now more optimistic that they’ll come up with some helpful ideas,” he said.
Residents who live near the creek collectively pay $1 million in annual flood insurance premiums, Garrison said.
“It’s a costly proposition for anyone living in the flood plain around Eubanks Creek, costing as much as $5,000 each year for flood insurance,” she said.
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About 300 structures are located in the Eubanks Creek flood plain, some of which are situated along Crane Creek which runs into Eubanks.
Eubanks Creek is not a naturally flooding creek, Garrison said, noting a problem is lack of proper maintenance.
One of the first deliverables could be dredging the creek and restoring the original creek floor, depending on the cost, she said. Dredging is the process of removing sediments and debris from the bottom of lakes, rivers, harbors and other bodies of water and is routinely performed because the natural process of sand and silt washing downstream gradually fills channels.
The master planning process will consider not only remedies for flooding but also include options for enhancing the neighborhood.
“While we are sure there are fixes to Eubanks flooding, it became clear that we needed to step back, look at the entire creek bed from Lake Hico to the Pearl River, and create a master plan for addressing the challenges of Eubanks flooding but, just as important, looking for opportunities to make Eubanks Creek a community amenity,” Garrison said. “Water features can be good.”
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Additional green space could result from the master planning process.
“Based on our population, Fondren should have approximately 20 acres of parks and green space,” Garrison said. “We have three acres. We’ll be looking for parcels along the creek where we can add pocket parks and walking trails. And we will be looking critically for opportunities to tie into existing trails and parks.”
City Collective is expected to begin work July 1 and should have a final presentation of their work by Oct. 14, according to information provided to city council members.
The master planning process will focus on community engagement and provide cost estimates for various strategies along with design concepts, Garrison said.
The contract calls for City Collective to create a design that crafts “an ambitious, yet implementable vision for Eubanks Creek and the immediate surrounding parcels, outlines a step-by-step roadmap for incremental implementation and clearly identifies discrete infrastructure and public work projects to attract and align funding over time.”
An in-person, all-day site visit by the design team is included in the basic scope of services.
The design team is to prepare a draft concept master plan and a final concept master plan that includes a diagrammatic plan of Eubanks Creek from Lake Hico to the
See Eubanks Creek Page 15B
Pearl River, an illustrative site plan of the Eubanks Creek focus area from North State Street to Old Canton Road, eye-level illustrations, bird eye/aerial illustration, phasing diagram and a vision booklet, illustrating the vision and the impact.
The Capitol Complex Improvement District, which includes Fondren, has $1 million to address flooding along Eubanks Creek and the city has about $370,000 left from the $500,000 funding the state granted last year, Garrison said.
“Based on the hydrology work the city has previously done and this contract, we will still have more than $1 million to start implementation of the master plan, which, ideally, will be in place by the end of the year,” she said, noting that more funding will likely be needed.
Garrison said the foundation plans to work with the city to see that dollars meant for creek improvements are spent wisely based on community input, engineering and case study.
“Within the next few weeks, a community meeting will be held to hear from Fondren residents, and a Stakeholder Steering Committee will be formed to guide the process,” she said.
Through the years, Eubanks Creek has been the subject of improvement plans that have gone nowhere.
In 2016, the city brought Stantec Consulting Services on with a contract not to exceed $387,000, to draw up plans for a section of the creek from North State Street to Eagle Avenue.
The engineering was paid for by the city’s infrastructure sales tax. However, no one-percent dollars were set aside for the construction.
One impetus to address the longstanding problem with flooding was due to Venyu Solutions LLC, a tech and data company based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that was working with the city of Jackson to transform the former McRae’s Department Store at Meadowbrook Mart into a data center. The project involved a contract with the University of Mississippi Medical Center to help construct and power its Center for Telehealth in a new building adjacent to Venyu but it did not come to fruition.
In 2022, PraCon Global Investment Group announced plans to redevelop the site where the former McRae’s Department Store once stood into lofts. Residents received assurance during a neighborhood meeting that the development would not worsen drainage in the area.
PraCon demolished most of the shopping center but has not started construction on the apartment complex.
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