WESTFIELD – At a meeting of the City of Westfield’s Off-Street Parking Commission last night, Westfield City Engineer Mark Cressotti unveiled plans to revamp several downtown parking lots. The parking lots, a lot at the start of Franklin Street chief among them, are set to be reconfigured in the coming years.
The Franklin Street parking lot, which is seated behind several Elm Street businesses, as well EV-Rite Tool and the Kellog House, would see the parking alley redirected and an entrance onto Elm Street turned into a one-way, in an effort to reduce congestion and to improve traffic safety when delivery trucks arrive with goods for those businesses.
“Currently, their truck service is coming in on Elm Street, a four-way roadway, pulling onto Chapel Street, a one-way road, and then back up across the four lanes of traffic and down an alley,” Cressotti said. “To accomodate them, we’re looking at trucks coming in, coming up the alley and unloading.”
“This is a viable business with the next generation set to take over,” he said of EV-Rite. “They’re not going away.”
The rearrangement of the lot would amount to almost the same number of spaces with the loss of maybe one or two. The city is looking to acquire land behind a nearby apartment building, and corral the dumpsters that litter the back alley behind the Elm Street businesses into one central location. Centralizing dumpsters will be done in an effort to create a clear walkway and unloading area for trucks stretching from Franklin to Arnold Street.
“The only concerns I would have is the cutting across traffic,” said OSP Commission Chairman Brian Hoose. “If there were a ‘no left turn’ sign or something (coming out of the alley).” Cressotti assured him that he hadn’t seen any issues with that particular alleyway.
“We’re looking to start construction this spring, with two construction cycles,” Cressotti said. “We’re anticipating that, in the first construction cycle, we’ll be doing the underground utilities, sewer, water. A lot of work to be done.”
He stated the second cycle will be for the surface features of the parking lots, roadways, and the curving of the sidewalk, which is scheduled to start in the spring of 2015, around the same time the downtown intermodal transportation center is slated to begin construction.
Other parking areas set to receive makeovers include those on Church and School streets near the former home of the School Street Bistro.
After the meeting Cressotti felt the exchange was fruitful.
“I think it went well. The commission has been concerned and interested for quite some time. This has been maybe 10 years we’ve been talking about this project,” he said. “It’s not the first time they’ve seen it. It’s not the first time we’ve broached some of these issues.”
“We’re finally getting down to some details and it’s really what I wanted to run by them and let them see,” he said. “To clarify and answer some residual questions from previous meetings, and just give a heads up, that this looks like this is really going to happen.”
