BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – A plan to revitalize North Street is scheduled to get under way later this spring and be finished by the end of next year’s construction season.

The $6.6 million price tag for the project is up nearly 50 percent from its original 1999 estimate, but city officials say the early figure was preliminary.

North Street will be repaved from North Winooski Avenue to North Avenue, and the overall appearance of the street will be transformed. The idea dates to 1994, when the Old North End was designated a federal Enterprise Community under an urban renewal program early in the Clinton administration.

Eighteen months from now, the old street, which crosses the most densely populated and poorest district of the city, will be lined with trees and old-fashioned street lights. The utility lines will have disappeared underground, and the smooth, new pavement will be framed by new curbs and sidewalks, new traffic signals and decorative crosswalks.

North Street hasn’t had a major face lift since 1930, when pavement was laid to cover old trolley tracks running over what had been a dirt street, said Kirsten Merriman-Shapiro, the project manager.

Work on the ambitious project will begin in May and extend through the 2005 construction season. One lane of the street will stay open during the job, Merriman-Shapiro said.

Funding for the construction is 80 percent federal, 10 percent state and 10 percent local. Moving utility lines underground will account for 32 percent of the project’s cost — about $2.16 million, according to figures Merriman-Shapiro provided.

The apparent steep escalation in costs is “not unusual,” said Councilor Bill Keogh, D-Ward 5.

“It’s not good news,” Keogh said of the $6.6 million estimate, “but it’s realistic.”

AP-ES-04-11-04 1300EDT