Moving ahead with plans to revitalize the wasteland (pictured) where the Oak Street neighborhood once stood, city officials unveiled a conceptual plan for the abandoned Route 34 corridor Tuesday night that includes a mix of housing, retail space, biomedical/ office space, and three parking garages.
Plans to develop the corridor, which was cleared 40 years ago to make way for a highway that was never built, were revealed at an aldermanic briefing in City Hall.
In 2000, the state officially abandoned plans to make the grassy strip between Frontage Road and Legion Avenue into a highway, according to city officials. Officials are planning ways to change the strip from a car-dominated thoroughfare into a mixed-use neighborhood.
City Economic Development Director Kelly Murphy said after meeting with various neighborhood groups, the department has finished its conceptual plan. Alders were generally receptive to plans, with concerns about truck traffic, local ownership, and the viability of having housing next to so many zooming cars.
The city’s plan wouldn’t change the structure of Frontage Road and Legion Avenue. City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg said the department considered returning them to two-way streets, or laying them side by side, but she said such a change would be too costly and disruptive, and might take 10 years to get the state Department of Transportation to complete.
Instead, the city hopes to leave those highway-like roads in place and return the middle area into a neighborhood, restoring three cross streets and improving urban connectivity. The plan — still in a “conceptual” phase — includes 620 residential units (pictured in yellow) divided up among a variety of “mid-rise” buildings, townhouses, lofts, two-to-three-family units and “cottages”.
Along the stretch of Legion Avenue closest to Howe Street would sit a strip of commercial space with apartments on top (in red with slashed lines). Three parking garages (in gray) would hold 1,958 parking spaces — a number that caused concern among Dwight residents in February, but has not been changed. It did not cause a stir among aldermen Monday. In this parcel, two big block buildings (in blue) would be marketed for biomedical use.
Commercial and retail space (in red in picture), totaling 82,000 square feet, would be divided into buildings clustered around Orchard and Winthrop Avenues. Residents would access driveways from new internal roads (in purple), so they wouldn’t have to risk their lives turning from driveways into Rt. 34 traffic. (That was one alder’s concern).
Along the northwestern-most segment, city planners catered to stakeholders’ desires over whether there should be a park (pictured, under a flap of paper) or more housing. Neighbors argued against a park. “What’s the sense of putting a park there” when Edgewood and West River parks are so close by? asked Ward 23 Alderman Yusuf Shah. Planners canceled the proposed park area, and added more housing.
Shah supported the plans, with concerns that West River business owners would get a “piece of the pie” in new retail space. He sees the plan as a good way to “reconnect two neighborhoods that have been shut off for a while.” Murphy couldn’t promise the businesses would be local, but she said the project would yield over 700 permanent jobs — 275 in commercial/retail, and 458 in biomedical/office.
Westville Alderwoman Ina Silverman was receptive of the plan, adding she’d like to see a T. J. Maxx or a Marshall’s move into one of the retail spots with apartments or offices above.
Hill Alderwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks was skeptical of the whole vision. “Who’s going to live there? Why would I want to live in the middle of a two-lane highway?” she asked.
Like urban renewalists of the 1950s, Murphy urged imagination to re-think the use of the space. “Part of this is envisioning something different than what is there today.” What’s there now isn’t working. It doesn’t create tax revenue. Instead, the $342 million project would yield $9 million in taxes per year, she said. Traffic would be calmed via more stop lights, she added.
What would happen to the trucks? City Plan Chief Karyn Gilvarg said consultants are still analyzing truck-travel impact.
Murphy (pictured) acknowledged that it might be tough to convince the state to transform the state-owned car corridor. The city and the state have “two very different missions — move cars very rapidly, versus build a neighborhood. It’s going to be a big struggle.”
Murphy hopes to develop the parcel through the Municipal Development Program, which would seek to obtain federal and state funding for necessary public improvements that would support building by private developers. Science Park and River Street were developed this way — it takes longer, but saves the city from having to get funding through local bonds. The cost to build new waterways and natural gas pipes alone would cost $2 million, and other untallied costs — new roads, storm drains and sewers — are sure to greatly inflate that number.
Murphy hopes to kick off talks with the state Department of Economic and Community Development about the Municipal Development Program as soon as December. Plans would then seek aldermanic approval in December 2007, with Requests For Proposals sent out in 2008, according to Murphy’s tentative timeline.