Mainly clear. Low 59F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..

Mainly clear. Low 59F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.

KENDALLVILLE — Picture this: A clear, crisp winter night illuminated by zig-zagging strings of soft lights suspended over Main Street.

Kendallville’s hoping to make it happen this year, and maybe not even just for the holidays.

At Wednesday’s Kendallville Redevelopment Commission meeting, Main Street Manager Kristen Johnson brought up the idea stringing lights over the downtown thoroughfare, bringing back a little bit of Kendallville history lost to the years.

Johnson had pictures of Kendallville’s past from when the city had lights strung over Main Street, but that’s something the city hasn’t been able to do in years because of previous street lamps in the downtown.

But, since the city’s streetscape project and because of the new, historic-looking street poles that now light up Main Street, it’s possible to revive the effect in downtown.

“There used to be lights over the street in downtown,” Johnson said as she showed off a copy of a historic photo of Main. “So (city engineer Scott Derby) measured downtown what it would take. ... We can do it front street pole to street pole.”

Each block of Main Street would take about 600 feet of lights, going from one post, diagonally across the block to the next on the other side of the street, creating a zig-zag of lights from east to west sides.

The lights would be hung high enough that they wouldn’t interefere with traffic, even if larger box trucks come through downtown as they’d hang about the same height as the stoplights.

Johnson priced out some commercial-grade “Edison-style” string lights, finding one seller offering them for $1,330.75 for a 330-foot strand.

Johnson suggested the city could do two blocks worth — likely from Rush to William and then from William to Mitchell — or continue further north past Mitchell and do a third block to where the new street lights end near the railroad tracks.

The new streetlights have outlets on them where the lights could be plugged in and the extra footage on each strand would allow for a little sag in the lines to drape the lights in a canopy over the road.

“I think it would be really impactful for downtown. I didn’t know if you’d be willing to pay for them,” Johnson asked the RDC.

When asked when the lights would go up and for how long, Johnson said they’d go up for the holidays, but didn’t dismiss the idea that they could stay up longer or even year-round if people liked them.

In effect, the lights over Main Street might be somewhat similar to the decorate lights overhead in The Alley, the city’s dressed-up gathering spot in the alley next to the Strand Theatre.

Similar string-light decorations are often used around outdoor patios or in dining spaces, to give off soft and flattering light in otherwise dark spaces.

The idea had one instant fan — East Noble’s Ryan Norden, the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council member who serves as the “Teen on Board” with the redevelopment commission.

“That’d be super cool,” Norden said, noting how much he and other youth enjoyed having the decorative lighted bulb ornament in the pocket park the last two Christmas seasons and how East Noble classmates enjoyed taking photos down there. “Having those lights over the street there would be so many cool pictures that would come out of it.”

Redevelopment commission members agreed that there was some decorative merit to the idea, and gave Johnson a not-to-exceed amount of $8,500, which should be enough to purchase the six strands that would be needed to loop lights from Rush Street to the tracks.

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