Pedestrians zig-zagging through the detached intersection of Fraser Street and Beaver Avenue may cross an aligned intersection within two years, State College borough officials say.

State College Borough Council member Cathy Dauler said the consultant of the new Beaver Avenue parking garage recommended the intersection be realigned to make a 90 degree cross to ease the flow of traffic entering and exiting the garage.

The three cycles of lights currently positioned there also make it unsafe for pedestrians, she said. Motorists making left-hand turns from Fraser Street onto Beaver Avenue are reluctant to let pedestrians cross, even when walkers have the right of way, Dauler said.

"I've nearly been killed at that intersection," she said. "That is one of the most unsafe pedestrian crossing zones in the borough."

The project has already cost the borough $2.1 million to condemn the Medical Arts Building, 201 to 213 W. Beaver Ave., Public Works Director Mark Whitfield said.

Employees of that building will be moved to the bottom two levels of the garage, which were designed for commercial space and will be ready by January, he said.

Workers will demolish the Medical Arts Building, along with the former municipal building, 118 S. Fraser St., in 2006, Whitfield said.

Tearing down those structures will also make land available for a Downtown Improvement District cineplex project, he said.

A 140-foot condominium tower will be built at West Beaver Avenue and South Fraser Street, and a three-story cinema will sit at the Calder Way and Fraser Street intersection.

The realignment project will cost an additional $1.4 million for construction, which will begin in early spring 2007, he said. The borough is hoping to finish the intersection for students' return that fall, Whitfield said.

Katherine Stabile (junior-civil engineering) said she's glad the borough is realigning the intersection. She said she walks across it every day to get to her apartment.

"It's an unsafe intersection," she said. "There's not that much time for someone to cross with the crosswalk."

Whitfield said that now the borough needs to secure funding for construction.

He said the borough received $251,000 of federal highway dollars last year, allocated by the state. Another $725,000 will come from the 2006 capital improvement program, a five-year spending plan for borough projects, he said.

The borough will make a request Monday for another $426,000 at a Centre County Metropolitan Planning Organization meeting, Whitfield said. That funding would be used for things such as streetlights and sidewalks, he said.

But getting that money may be tough because other municipalities will be competing for a limited amount of funds, said council member Elizabeth Goreham, vice chair of the organization.

"We're not going to be the highest priority because we received money for the same project last year," she said. "So we will probably have to go to other grant possibilities."

Goreham said the borough plans to seek at least $300,000 from a federal transportation bill as well.

"We're still scrambling," she said. "We're not there yet."