Cracks run down the rock-encrusted walkways like rivers down a map.

Uneven slabs of concrete pop up along the side. Edges of steps are crumbling, and the fountains no longer function.

Centennial Mall is falling apart.

Stretching from the State Capitol on K Street north to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on R Street, the mall was built in 1967 to mark Nebraska's centennial as a state. It has been home to festivals, marches and, memorably, Bob Kerrey's 1991 announcement of his presidential candidacy.

"It's needed repair for a while now," said Mayor Chris Beutler. "But beyond that I think it can be one of the special gems of the state. It's a sweeping, symbolic vista and connection between the university and the Capitol. It's a lovely space."

But that space has fallen into such disrepair it is difficult to use. It lacks handicapped accessibility, has multiple safety threats stemming from the uneven walkways and empty fountains and even the trees - in planters that restricted their growth four decades ago - are dying off.

"It's probably aged and deteriorated beyond the point where it's just a repair," said Lynn Johnson, director of the city's Parks and Recreation Department, which oversees the mall.

"There isn't much there that can be salvaged."

So Centennial Mall needs to be fully revamped.

But that process involves more than replacing

sidewalks or filling in fountains.

The city is taking a look at revitalizing the mall, turning it into, perhaps, a festival site, a place for public and political gatherings, a well-traveled walkway with sidewalk cafes.

To that end, a design team has been working on plans that go well beyond putting in new sidewalks.

"There's a 'wow' factor that can be associated with the mall," said design team leader JoAnne Kissel of Clark Enersen Partners. "You can do the functions that are baseline, that take care of certain hazards. We're looking at the opportunity to make the mall better."

The preliminary designs for Centennial Mall will be presented to the public for the first time Tuesday at an open house at the Scottish Rite Temple from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Some elements of the new design were drawn from conversations with "stakeholders," whose property is on the mall.

For example, the Lincoln Children's Museum, which sits on the mall on P Street next to one of the now-empty fountains, would like a large green space for outdoor activities. UNL's College of Journalism is across from the museum and brings hundreds of students onto the mall each day. A gathering place for them also would make sense.

Both are likely to be part of the final design, Johnson said.

This isn't the first time a new mall design has been created. In 1996, EDAW, a San Francisco-based national design and planning firm working with Bahr Vermeer Haecker Architects, created a plan that would have cost $3 million a block, or $21 million in total, to implement.

Financing wasn't available, and little was done.

In 2001, UNL architecture professor Thomas Laging took the EDAW study and created a conceptual design with a lower cost per block. Laging's work is serving as the skeleton for the new design.

The revamped mall, Johnson said, will include new trees planted along each side, and there will likely be fountains at the south end, near the Capitol, which will continue to serve as the pivotal element in the plan.

"One of the primary factors that will guide the design is that vista of the Capitol building," Johnson said. "It was (Capitol architect Bertram) Goodhue's vision of that mall from the university to the Capitol. Anything we do will take into account that vista of the Capitol."

So how does the mall fit with Goodhue's vision?

"Hand in glove," said State Capitol Administrator Robert Ripley, producing a copy of a Goodhue sketch that depicts a wide mall running north of the building.

Digging deeper into his archives, Ripley produced a 1977 document summarizing the history of the urban design plan for the Capitol environs, which details how the mall came about.

In 1927, planners identified the need to open 15th Street between K and R. In 1938, the next step was to widen 15th to 150 feet, with a 50-foot height limitation and architectural control of the buildings there.

In following years, the city obtained the property north of O Street and opened the mall. A 1952 plan called for a landscaped median on the street. But that was not implemented until 1967-68, when Centennial Mall was built.

Designed by Larry Enersen of Clark Enersen Partners, the mall initially covered only four of the seven blocks between the Capitol and the university. The idea was the middle three blocks, from M Street to P Street, would fill in as funding became available.

That did not happen. Nor is it envisioned the street also called Centennial Mall will be closed under any new mall plan.

Instead, Kissel said, the design calls for infrastructure improvements on those three blocks, including installation of sloped, "mountable curbs" and utility outlets to make the space better for large festivals, such as the Capital City Ribfest, held annually on the mall and N Street near the Pershing Center.

Funding for the design and some of the proposed improvements is coming from $2.2 million of TIF (tax increment financing) funds remaining from the One Landmark Center project at 1010 Lincoln Mall.

About $1 million of the TIF funds from that project was used to revitalize Lincoln Mall, the four blocks from the Capitol to the city-county complex. The TIF district was reconfigured to allow the residual $2.2 million to be spent on Centennial Mall.

"We envision it will be the money we leverage off of to work with other partners and donors," Johnson said of the TIF funds.

Exactly how the funds will be spent will be determined by the outcome of fundraising efforts and by action from the city and state governments, both of which will be asked to participate in the project.

State Sen. Bill Avery has been working on getting the Legislature to pay attention to the mall since he walked Centennial Mall on the way to lunch shortly after he was elected and was appalled by what he encountered.

In 2008, Avery's bill to establish a mall task force died on the legislative floor. This summer, he conducted an interim study on the mall.

"We have a bill that probably we'll introduce next year which will, at least, give the people who have been working on this the opportunity for a public hearing, lay out the plan for it and lay out the case for state participation in this," Avery said.

For Avery and Mayor Beutler, who once was able to get a $1 million appropriation for the mall when he was a state senator, the state needs to be a partner in refurbishing Centennial Mall.

"It's a shared responsibility," Avery said. "It's the gateway to the Capitol, a highly important state resource. It's partially the state's responsibility, partially the city's and partially the university's. There's a couple blocks there that we'd like to have the University help us. We need to convince the Legislature it's not just a Lincoln responsibility."

The final plan for the mall is to be completed in January, in time for the start of the legislative session, Johnson said.

While the details of that plan have yet to be assembled, one thing is certain:

Something will be done with Centennial Mall very soon.

"Anybody we have talked to would agree we've reached the point where there isn't a no-action option," Kissel said. "It's become increasingly embarrassing and dangerous."

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.