WESTFIELD – City Engineer Mark Cressotti presented detail of the city’s next downtown improvement project, the Gaslight District infrastructure improvements, to the Traffic Commission for their review.
The project will encompass the area between Elm Street on the east, and Washington Street on the west, Franklin Street on the north and Court Street on the south.
Cressotti said the Gaslight Project would improve the infrastructure and streets, while enhancing pedestrian movement in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods abutting Elm Street.
“This whole neighborhood is in need of upgraded utilities. The existing facilities don’t support economic development or serve the needs of the residents,” Cressotti said.
Cressotti said existing underground utilities would be replaced and overhead utilities will be buried to support further commercial and residential development in the neighborhood.
A new street will be constructed through the Arnold Street municipal parking lot at an offset with Summer Street and the cut through between Church and School streets. Sidewalks will be installed with pump-outs to increase pedestrian safety.
A key focus of the Gaslight Project will be to improve and enhance pedestrian movement between the municipal parking facilities and the city’s downtown commercial and entertainment district, Cressotti said.
The off-street parking facilities in both the Arnold Street and Franklin Street municipal parking lots will be reconfigured. Those reconfigurations will also support the Elm Street commercial and transportation projects and the eventual construction of a multistory parking garage.
The Gaslight District project also includes construction of small, urban pocket parks, green oases in a jungle of concrete and asphalt. One proposed park will be constructed in an existing parking area off Church Street, behind the former Bistro Restaurant, while another is planned in the Arnold Street parking lot along the new access road. The parks will have artifacts of historic significance, now in storage at various city departments.
The Historical Commission has approved the use of a cascading cast-iron fountain, which once graced the front Victorian garden of the Thayer Estate that was located at the intersection of Broad and East Silver streets and the use of granite blocks reclaimed from the General Shepard memorial during the recent Main/Broad streets reconstruction to enhance the pocket parks.
“We’re relocating the Arnold Street drive through to make as much room as possible for the parking garage and future development of the site,” Cressotti said last night.
The Gaslight project also includes the widening of Arnold Street from Elm Street down to the new Arnold Street Parking lot access driveway.
