Amidst the reclamation and flood mitigation work taking place along the Pinal Creek corridor in recent months, an unrelated project has finally gone from the planning stage to building, as the Jesse Hayes Road sidewalk project is winding its way up the canyon to the Community Center Park.
The project has been years in the making, as the City has worked to acquire funding and complete the planning necessary to build a pathway that will make the area safer for pedestrians and provide infrastructure to make City amenities more accessible to residents.
“Our inspector is out there every day, making sure the work is going according to plans,” says Travis Ashbaugh, Assistant Public Works Planning Director for the City of Globe. “So far, it’s going pretty smooth and the contractor is doing a good job.”
Ashbaugh has a special relationship with the project, as he has been part of the process from the time the City requested funding from Central Arizona Governments (CAG) and the Rural Transportation Advocacy Council (RTAC) in 2020. At the time, Ashbaugh was working for CAG and advocated for funding before being recruited to come to Globe and work for the Public Works Department a few years ago.
“There was a good surplus at the state budget level at the time, and the RTAC came up with the idea of going to the legislature to pitch a one-time transportation project,” Ashbaugh says. “It was ranked the number one project we got at CAG, so it was put on the priority list, and once we got the money we started the design.”
According to Ashbaugh, the project is about 30% completed, with a June 30, 2027 deadline to finish all three phases. Doege Development, a Phoenix-based general contractor, has been procured to do the work.
The overall cost of the project is $3,336,805, which will be mostly grant funded thanks to RTAC state appropriations. The City’s portion of matching funds will be approximately $165,000.
The current phase is adding sidewalks and drainage to the section of Hagen Road from Oil Circle Road to the Community Center Skatepark and Besh Ba Gaowah. The final phase will follow Jesse Hayes from Ruiz Canyon Bridge (Connie’s) to Oil Circle Road.
“The many times I’ve driven up and down that canyon, going out to the college and hauling my own kids to the park, I’ve always seen pedestrians walking along the side of that street,” says Globe City Councilman Mike Pastor. “Fortunately, nobody ever got injured that I can recall, but it was an accident waiting to happen, so it’s a good thing that we’re able to do this.”
Pastor was born and raised in Miami, but has lived in Globe for more than 50 years, serving as both the District 3 Supervisor and multiple terms as the District 4 Councilman in Globe. He says his approach is to build infrastructure that will contribute to a better quality of life for the entire region.
“I’m a Miami High School graduate, but it’s never been about the City of Globe or the Town of Miami: To me, it’s been for the community, for all the people who live in this community, Globe-Miami-Claypool,” Pastor says.
The work has been a long time coming, as making Jesse Hayes Road more accessible to pedestrians has long been a goal of the City and members of the community.
Studies from 1991, 2012, and 2015 addressed the health and economic benefits, as well as the feasibility of creating more people-friendly connectors from Miami to the Gila Community College Campus. While the current project was not part of any previous studies, for many years individuals and business leaders advocated for a trail to follow Pinal Creek all the way to Highway 188, where plans for an aquatic and recreational center were envisioned.
But funding for the Aquatic Center, Pinal Creek Linear Park (1992) and, later, the Pinal Creek Trail (2012) never came to fruition. Eventually, the City of Globe turned its focus to refurbishing the Community Center complex and addressing the structural needs of the surrounding area.
“I don’t want people to think this is some kind of master plan to revive those projects,” says Globe Councilman Fernando Shipley. “But what people didn’t understand was that those earlier studies weren’t necessarily plans as much as conceptual ideas that would cost a lot of money.”
Shipley has served as Councilman and Mayor for Globe since his arrival in 1999. After a few breaks in his service, he has been back on Council for the past three terms and has seen a lot of progress in rehabilitating the structure of a City that is more than 100 years old.
He says that the City’s recent track record acquiring funding and following through with big-ticket projects has helped build things that have been on the City’s wish list for decades.
“What people don’t always realize is how much planning it takes to be in a position to even acquire the funding,” Shipley says. “You don’t ever know if it’s going to happen, but if you don’t lay the groundwork to get there, it’ll never happen.”
For Pastor—who was a member of the aquatic center group for a number of years—the sidewalk project is another step in a long-standing goal to improve the quality of life for everyone in the Globe-Miami area, regardless of where they call home.
“There’s seven of us on the City Council, and we’re all focused on the same general idea, and that’s to make our community a better community,” Pastor says. “I don’t feel any of us have any individual desires. We work as a group, and whatever’s best for the community is the way we want to go.”
As work continues, residents can follow the project’s progress, view construction updates, and learn more about the improvements underway by going to the City’s “Jesse Hayes Sidewalk Project” page at www.globeaz.gov/page/jesse-hayes-sidewalk or by following the official City of Globe social media pages.
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