Minutes: Regular meeting 3/12/14
Carry on discussion with A.J. Schwartz on Beverly corridor.
AJ: Recap previous discussion and put emphasis on implementation of 3rd street streetscape improvements & alternative location of parking garage now being planned for U. Ave. across from U. Place--not a good site because of many challenges, e.g. topography, traffic congestion, inconvenient to parkers trying to get to downtown or to campus. Streetscape to provide ready and safe access to increasing numbers of pedestrians, not on U. Place side of 3rd but opposite side. No sidewalk on U. Place side vis a vis telephone poles etc. Access for pedestrians up and down 3rd just as important as new ped access on Beverly or Grant because of increasing numbers.
Demonstration alley #7. EPD recommends re-grade the alleys, put down porous base coat of asphalt which helps with water runoff, but city engineer wants see full cross section as a city street which elevates cost considerably. Alternative: alleys stone now, so recoat alleways with stone after regrading and reworking. In addition, dumpster enclosures which cluster users--two or three to an enclosure. Put all utilitarian stuff in alley. Not recommending that stone be long-term solution; paving instead, but not necess to street specifications.
Mayor: Base coat good on demonstration basis; see how long lasts. Something innovative & cost effective and has better chance than gravel which washes out and creates other problems.
AJ: Whether asphalt or whatever put down, must be accompanied with storm drainage improvements in alleys. capture water in the block & get it back out to the cross streets to storm drain. Costly benefit.
YT: What about parterning with WVU experimental surfaces and get them to do two or three alleys with various surfaces to see what might work best while at same time giving cost benefit.
Kelly: Demonstration alley thing gives us better parking, better trash management, and better storm water control.
AJ: Won't necessarily gain more parking on alleways. People park everywhere now, esp in winter. May only be moving shells around a little bit. More emphasis on passability in alleys which is not there in most.
Kelly: Alley below McLane paved to city specs has dumpster collection that cannot be accessed: no dumpster pickup for four weeks because Republic Services cannot access.
Craig: have already gone to dumpster services only, on street. Alley only 15' wide so trash truck cannot navigate.
Jeff: on lower alleys, easier to grade and create parking--perhaps as many as three or four hundred spaces of off-street. With TIF moneys we can contract with property owner to build retaining walls and add that parking in there. And once widen area of alleys with retaining walls, that creates wider areas for trash storage and pickup as well.
Weaver: spoke of the various complications of redoing an alleyway. AECOM has completed inventory of alleways via a walk-through from Campus to 5th, documenting condition various other aspects. the issues are manifold and challenging, as indicated by our discussion today and earlier. Will now come back with estimate of cost including city's cross section requirements and incidentals that go along with higher end of city's requirements. will also come up with other qualitative ideas from AECOM perspective for continuing discussion. The task order was to come up with that one city engineering required cost. One other complicating factor here is that the travel way in many alleys is not within the city right of way.
Kelly: Beverly Ave. one way going North. That's going to cause drivers to take 4th down to alley and go back toward campus and will turn alley into a major thoroughfare only 15ft row. Going one way on Beverly.
AJ: Issue trying solve with one way is people coming down U. Ave. trying to make that turn onto Beverly as hairpin turn. But final analysis depends on traffic studies which show all demographics in this intersection. the 3rd St. intersection is a mess however you configure it. Then, looking toward Beverly and 6th, if traffic going down-stream tried take softer approach with different alignments to get a wider turn without taking a 110 degree turn to get onto Bev. $400 to 500k to redo Beverly and 6th. without the widening of 6th down to Grant.
Kelly: trees on Beverly? How many survived on Grant? Most got destroyed; that's a fact. Resident related.
Mayor: Look to see if any trees survived on Grant.
Kawecki: We have 7 components for TIF II. What gives us most bang for buck? what pushes things forward? where can we invest money that will bring us other money? other development? or being most advantageous? Parking Garage: what's the city's attitude toward it?
Arnold: absolutely something needs to be done for parking. Facilities available today are saturated = overcrowding on streets. Need management tool as well as facilities to be constructed. Blue curb for starters. How protect Wiles Hill & surrounding neighborhoods. People don't like to pay to park = measures to make parking elsewhere a cost as well. Start with neighborhoods and work back to SS. A good problem to have and must be worked through thoughtfully.
Justice: back to Bill's point on choosing well what do, Penn State as example. City and other entities work together on parking. But first question is, how many spaces do we need? how get them?
Mayor: do need to know fixes for 3rd St & Beverly intersections. Must know costs to know funds needed to fix them.
Kelly: must look at our goals. Is our goal to make more development, or to make a better neighborhood? We've never asked one resident what they think would improve this neighborhood. We've given up on improving any sidewalks. Are we talking about McLane? No.
Bill: how do we encourage development in the right way?
Kelly: Warden and Byers will build their building whether or not we want it, if we pack up and go away. Did Metro Towers get developed because of any improvements we did to Beverly or traffic flow improvements? No.
Bill: don't understand your argument here.
Kelly: city created parking problem by not requiring enough spaces for multi units. How solve it? We haven't even been able to blue line SS. I mean, what's it take to paint blue on some sidewalks and issue some tickets? A parking garage is built under what circumstances: if you can acquire the land, build it, and make it cash flow. and it ends up being a city asset.
Weaver: we will do topographic mapping, look at all grades involved, e.g. 3rd & University--look at the turning movements from U to 3rd, putting a conceptual level cost, already tasked to do that with sidewalks, so you end up with costs with varieties in them.
Justice: must look beyond the TIF funds to partnerships, set aside B&O to invest in infrastructure, create a redevelopment zone, another round of TIF funding in future--so the large picture cannot be overlooked.
AJ: corridor study to avoid building sidewalks where going be torn up, to understand what we wanted to do long term, to get a true vision of this area and what we want to do in it, the long term goal, so we have to get some pricing so that we can make decisions here. But keeping the long term in mind so that we can get to where we want to be, doing what is necessary in the short term.
Jeff: At lease we'll know the numbers for all of these projects even though we're not going to do all of them at the same time. It's a little bit of pre-planning, if we don't get to 6th Street intersection we'll at least know what it woujld cost if want to do that. 3rd Street study will produce a lot of different ways of redoing it but ultimately we'll do sidewalks as as increment increases through other development and they do sidewalks. Partnering with state etc. At least we'll have something to serve as master plan. Original contract with engineer had three task items: alleyways, sidewalks, 6th St. & Beverly. Latter put on hold while going through this process. But we always thought it was worth paying attention to it.
AJ: you do want to figure out what it's going to take to fix 3rd & University. And while out of reach for TIF it gives us the basis for planning and budgeting and figuring out when we are going to take care of this. Put pen to paper and figure some things out. Also sounds like 6th & Beverly should be on the list, and once figure out what those numbers are then can start narrowing in on what want do. The two intersections are the big items that need get arms around, then when have some sense of that then start weaning the list down.
Craig: are both parking facilities at U Ave & at 3rd going to be built, or is it one or the other? Either one would have a sig. impact on U Ave and 3rd St. 3rd Street become number 1 to get a handle on. Highest priority. Next August our problem is going to be magnified; it's already an issue--traffic flow, parking, etc.
Campus drive is gridlocked now. Close it off. Might as well shut it down.
AJ: let's walk this through. No garage on University but one on Grant somewhere.
Vitale: a procedural suggestion. Can we select some projects today to proceed with?
Weese: move that we study 3rd St intersection and get some preliminary design & cost estimates. And if we want to extend that corridor to Beechurst let's do that. Vitale second.
Kelly:motion for cost estimates on intersection at top, then streetscape down onto Beechurst. Unanimous approval.
Mikorski: by looking at 3rd St intersection will create some domino effect that could bring 6th Street into play. If through the engineering it is determined that turning Beverly one way that brings 6th St into play. Made as motion. Weese seconds.
Weaver: study of Beverly and 6th proposed at $9,000. 10 to 20% of cost AJ put out there ($500K) seems to be a reasonable cost for that intersection. Are we looking at one-way traffic on Beverly? in which direction?
AJ: you do the intersection design from 3rd St. Once you see how you're able to optimize an intersection design, the one-way discussion will come to ligtht. So once you have design on 3rd intersection Weaver can begin fleshing out 6th street & Bev. One thing to keep in mind, one-way on Beverly helps work out the redesign of 6th., especially the geometry of it becomes easier when you don't have to worry about that other direction for traffic. All cars are flowing downstream.
Craig: if including 6th and Beverly, then must include 6th down to Grant.
Jeff: if determine in looking at 3rd we have to then look at 6th, then move to conceptually engineer 6th & Beverly. Passed without dissent.
Arnold: (asked when he could give us a rough timeline on parking garage). Will meet with his Board and let us know. Sunnyside is a very important part of what we plan to do and want to talk with this Board as well on that.
Jeff: we do need to know your plans and how they include SS before you start throwing blue paint on curbs in Wiles Hill. all that parking will go somewhere else. It will not disappear.
Mayor: there's a particular urgency to what you can do in SS. Come fall the demand for parking is going to cascade, so need face that now.
Vitale: no other place in the city will see the surge of population that SS will see in a few months.
Arnold: there will be a strong surge downtown as well with 600 beds now under development.
Justice: can we go and talk with DOH between now and next meeting?