TRYON – Passersby may have noticed last week that improvements are being made on both sides of Trade Street in downtown Tryon, including at Morris the horse. 

Work began last week at Tryon’s downtown mascot, Morris, as part of the town’s downtown streetscape plan, which includes new sidewalks and bump outs around Oak Street and will also include repaving roads.

The work at Morris will include street and sidewalk improvements around the statue.

“The work being done at the Morris area was all part of the same engineer design that was previously approved by the board of commissioners called Pacolet/Oak Street Streetscape project,” said Tryon’s community development director Paula Kempton. “It is four corners, but one project and will complete the original Main Street project that was started years ago.”

The work to finish the town’s streetscape project began in June and will continue through October. Tryon’s board of commissioners recently extended the contract with Trace & Company until Nov. 1. All the work is scheduled to be complete prior to the town’s Beer Festival, scheduled for Nov. 5.

Work began on Oak Street to include redoing an existing sidewalk on one side of the street and adding a sidewalk on the other as well as bump outs at the intersection. Replacing the sidewalk from Missildine’s to the Tryon Theater is also part of the streetscape project.

Other improvements will include repaving part of East Howard Street and Peake Street.

The repaving of East Howard Street will be from Trade Street to the Oak Street intersection.

The repaving of Peake Street will be between East Howard and Shepherd Street.

The town plans to spend approximately $200,000 on the project, not including infrastructure work while East Howard is being paved, with the infrastructure work to be done in-house.