FAMU Way hailed as being a ‘most beautiful roadway’

By St. Clair Murraine
Outlook staff writer

Former city manager Anita Favors and others who took turn speaking at a ribbon cutting ceremony to mark completion of FAMU way referred to it as the “most beautiful roadway” in the city.

Favors was the driving force behind initiating plans for the road that connects Adams Street to Lake Bradford Road. She couldn’t help getting emotional when it was her turn to speak, standing with teary eyes.

“Today we are experiencing the exhilaration associated with completion of a major roadway on the Southside of our community,” said Favors, who spent 25 years working for the city, the last 18 as city manager before retiring in 2015. “I’d love to give kudos to those who have enhanced the project; those who have supported it and those who have brought it to completion. 

“You have supported it and brought it to fruition.”

The ceremony last Friday marked completion of a project that took the involvement of a cross-section of Southside residents who made up a citizen advisory committee.  FAMU faculty, led by Charles U. Smith, and engineering students also had a hand in the project. 

The winding roadway of about two miles takes drivers through four roundabouts. The street is lined with landscaping and features wide sidewalks. A playground and other amenities line the route.

Darryl Jones, one of the citizen advisory committee members, referred to the completed FAMU Way as “an amazing transformation that opens up more possibilities for this area.”

 The section of the projected that was opened last Friday didn’t get started without controversy, though it was held up briefly in 2019 when protestors questioned the removal of a row of oak trees near the intersection Still Court and Mill Street. Years earlier, the shuttered Shingles Chicken Shack was the first structure demolished to allow realignment of the roadway.

An old wastewater station was also demolished for the realigned roadway.

However, the city plans to establish markers with tribute to the historic neighborhood around Still Court. A statement from the city prior to the opening said that the History and Culture Trail project is being coordinated by the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency, which will recognize the area’s history in physical form along the corridor.

Completion of the final phase of the roadway actually creates a corridor that connects Cascades Park, through Lake Anita, to the St. Marks Trail.

“It’s everything you want in a roadway in your neighborhood,” said City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow. “This is the type of infrastructure people are asking for all across our city, all across our community and we look forward to delivering.”

Adam Boynton Kay, owner of Rail Road Village, located off Mill Street, watched the project developed over the last 10 years. Having a thoroughfare like FAMU way enhances his plans to build affordable housing and add some commercial space to his property, he said.

“It’s an incredible cohesiveness of city projects coming together,” he said. “What’s really amazing is this isn’t just a chain of parks. The city has planned this out for a very long time. What we are experiencing today has been the result of so many individuals’ effort. It’s just amazing to see it come to fruition.”