LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- A civic plaza for downtown Las Cruces did not materialize, leaving about $1.5 million for the city to put toward another project, pending legislative approval.

City council members are looking at opening up parts of Main Street in Las Cruces to motor traffic.

It's something that has been part of the capital improvement plan for several years.

But there were mixed emotions about the news.

“As long as they continue with this model of benches on the side, I can't see people really objecting to it. It just opens up and expands access making things more available,” said Joe Speer of Downtown Las Cruces.

“I think that they should actually leave it the way they do. That's a lot of money maybe they could reallocate the funds to something else,” said Monica Estrada of Las Cruces’ East Mesa.

A proposed civic plaza did not go through east of Main Street because negotiations for private property failed. The money that would have been used could get Main Street opened up soon.

“We're expecting that those two sections combined, they're going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.5 million. We'll be starting in the next few months tearing down the shade structures on the south side,” said William Slettom, downtown development coordinator.

In 2006, cars came down Main Street in front of the Rio Grande Theatre for the first time in 32 years.

“This is a process that was started back in 1994. The first plan for revitalizing downtown was presented and accepted by the community. It took from 1994 until 2005 to come up with a master plan implementation on what this is going to look like," said Slettom.

“I think it would help and beautify the whole downtown area, reactivate it, said Speer.

The farmers market would be moved one block to the south. The blocks to the north and south of the theater would have parallel parking on each side, according to plans.