Kelly’s last coffee: Drury buys 50 percent of 1750 Brentwood Blvd.

Brentwood Mayor Pat Kelly held his last coffee with residents Friday, March 27, capping a 14-year run as mayor and eight years as an alderman. Among the 25 citizens attending the event were mayoral candidates Mark Wilson and Chris Thornton.

Kelly updated citizens on several current and future issues:

• St. Louis County crews swept Brentwood Boulevard Thursday, March 26.
• Work on the Brentwood Boulevard repaving project will begin May 1 and continue through late October or early November. Paving is the last phase of the project, which will include new curb cuts at all intersections. This long-awaited project was delayed after St. Louis County spent the Interstate 64 reconstruction money earmarked for Brentwood on expansion of Highway 141 instead, Kelly said.
• The city has submitted an application for a grant to repave Manchester Road and expects approval during the summer. Construction would take place in the third year of the project.
• Construction on the federally funded Litzsinger Road Improvement Project is scheduled for this summer.
• The Brentwood Public Works Department will do mill and overlay projects this summer on several streets, including High School Drive and Louis Avenue. The mill and overlay project is the natural sequel to a 1989 bond issue that funded repaving of all city streets, continuing through 1997. The city paid off the $8 million bond issue for that project in 2011, and now those streets are ready for another facelift. “Our goal now is to maintain the streets on an ongoing basis,” spending $250,000 to $300,000 a year, Kelly said.
• The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District will bore a tunnel from 25 to 150 feet under Brentwood Boulevard in 2016 as part of a major upgrade of the area’s sewer systems. The depth will vary with conditions, an MSD spokesperson said.
• The proposed dog park is on hold until MSD finishes its work in that area in about 2018.
• Total Wine & More plans to move into the Golf Galaxy building in the Promenade. The Delaware-based community-oriented liquor superstore chain aggressively enforces under-21 liquor control laws and offers wine classes and free meeting space for community groups.
• Drury Hotels Co. LLC recently became a 50 percent owner of the Joseph H. White building, 1750 S. Brentwood Boulevard. Plans for the building have not been determined, according to a Drury spokesperson.

“This is a great time,” Kelly said. “Brentwood is in great shape. There are a lot of things that still need to be done, and they will be.”

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