YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – It’s been a couple of years since renovation along Fifth Avenue between YSU and Commerce Street has been completed. Workers now are sprucing up some of the landscaping along the roadway that hasn’t been touched until now.

“We have YSU starting classes back up at the end of the month, so we want to get it done before the traffic gets too crazy,” said Chuck Shasho, deputy director of public works.

As that’s happening, crews have also been busy cutting down weeds that had grown waist-high along parts of Commerce Street and other thoroughfares that had been under construction since last year.

John Lapin works downtown. He’s complained about the lack of landscaping while construction is taking place. He thinks as more and more people come in for festivals and concerts, the overgrown areas present a bad look for visitors.

“I think they finally heard from enough people, hey, let’s knock these weeds down,” Lapin said.

Crews were busy Friday putting down a much-needed layer of mulch along Front Street to go with what’s already being done on the other side of the roadway. Officials say all this is a good sign that at least this portion of the downtown construction is nearly finished.

“You don’t want to go in there in between all the plants and put light poles up and so forth,” Shasho said. “Landscaping is, with any project, the last thing that is done.”

And while work continues to install new concrete crosswalks, Shasho says the city will have corridors like that maintained at least two or three times a year.