A plan to spruce up Main Street with trees, benches and other pedestrian-friendly improvements is taking shape.
Initial plans call for a streetscape improvement that would stretch from the top of the hill to the corner where The Bristol Press is located.
Though Beta Group officials are just beginning to meet with business owners and others to iron out details, the general idea is to spend as much as $1.8 million to replicate the changes made in 2005 along much of North Main Street.
Mickey Goldwasser, a Bristol Development Authority commissioner, said the work “enhances what we’re doing” with the neighboring 17-acre mall site that’s eyed for wholesale redevelopment in the next couple of years.
The initial plan includes small plazas next to the railroad bridge and near the old Bristol Savings Bank, with traffic calming measures along the roadway, new sidewalks, distinctive crosswalks and other features similar to what’s been done on North Main Street.
City councilors recently added $32,000 to the contract with Beta Group to extend the design work from the library up to Center Street.
Officials hope that improving the streetscape will lead to more commercial activity and a safer, friendlier environment for residents, a key element for pumping life into the city’s troubled downtown.
Jonathan Rosenthal, the city’s economic development director, said the design work should be done by spring and implementation of the plan should begin later in the year.
Mayor Art Ward said that the project ties in nicely with the Bristol Downtown Development Corp.’s effort to find a developer willing to build stores, office and housing on the mall property.
Rosenthal said that one of the challenges to the BDA is to address the downtown areas that aren’t covered by the BDDC’s mandate, including parking that’s not on the mall site itself.
“The BDA can play a role” in making the mall site project a success, Rosenthal said.
Ward said he’s glad to see the downtown corporation and the BDA working well together.
Ward and Frank Johnson, president of the BDDC, are meeting Friday with the head of the state's Department of Economic and Community Development.
"That's a crucial first step," Ward said, in showing the state that after a few years of bickering "we're all on board and working in conjunction with one another."
By working together and standing behind a single plan, Ward said, "We'll have more opportunity to determine our future.”
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
33 comments:
Wasn't this started about a year ago?
Any completion date?
Funding for the design was OK'd last year. Completion? Depends on whether the construction gets approved this year. If so, it ought to be done next year.
"Mickey Goldwasser, a Bristol Development Authority commissioner, said the work “enhances what we’re doing” with the neighboring 17-acre mall site that’s eyed for wholesale redevelopment in the next couple of years"
This is the most assinine statement I've heard in a while. What exactly are they doing? They're tearing down an old building. Now we're going to have over done sidewalks bordering an empty lot? This is pure stupidity and a waste of tax payer money (as was the north side).
Re: 7:36 Post
Thank you for your contructive comments.
"This is the most assinine statement I've heard in a while. What exactly are they doing?"
You call it assinine (sic) and then ask what they're doing?? Why don't you educate yourself a little bit about the project before you start badmouthing better men than you?
That statement is another beauty from Mr. Goldwasser. No offense to him, but if he is an example of the people on the BDA, it's no wonder their projects are filled with blunders and that Bristol can't get any good development going.
A WASTE OF TIME AND OUR MONEY. AS FOR THE MALL COMING DOWN WHAT IS EVERYONE SO EXCITED FOR OK IT WILL COME DOWN AND BE AN EMPTY LOT OF GRASS WITH A FENCE AROUND IT FOR YEARS AND YEARS JUST LIKE THE ONE ON THE TOP OF NORTH MAIN. ALL YOU ELECTED OFFICALS IN TOWN HALL ARE A JOKE YOU ARE ALL JUST SPENDING, SPENDING, SPENDING AND EVERYTIME WE TURN AROUND PROPERTY TAXES GO UP. SO LEVEL THE STUPID MALL PUT A FENCE AROUND IT BUT PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HIRE SOMEONE TO WATER THE GRASS.
January 16, 2008 11:21 PM:
I didn't "bad-mouth" him, I am calling his comments asinine. Perhaps I should have called them naive or an example of tunnel vision instead?
Whatever...is this what we get from the Bristol RINOs?
..."A waste of time and money"...okay, so what's your bright idea for Main St and the mall property? Aw heck...I know...maybe you and your buddies could move your trailers over there and start your own trailer park!
maybe you and your buddies could move your trailers over there and start your own trailer park!
January 17, 2008 8:58 AM
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Hmmm........ a money making suggestion ....... naw .... the leaders will never go for that .
What does "the Mickster" and all the other tunnel-visionists think is going in the mall property anyway? We need a $1.8 million sidewalk so people can cross over to CVS, the laundry mat, and Center Pizza?
Middletown has a four lane Main Street and angle parking. What's wrong with that? Why doesn't "the Mickster" and his buddies buy the mall property themselves?
excuse me, let me corrcet myself...why DON'T they?
...don't want to accused of not knowing correct grammar (or spelling, god forbid) again (by the teacher-groupie crowd).
I just hope that this project is more focused and better managed that the North Main street project.
Have we ever gotten a true cost report?
What is a "true cost report"?
January 17, 2008 2:24 PM:
Right on! What were the benefits to the community? We could have had an auto show there with out the "improvements". What else have we gotten? The Texas is gone and one store merely moved from across the street.
As far as the downtown and Main St go, of course the place needs cleaning up. But it has to do with the residents more than the sidewalks.
What I'm concerned more with is that some blow-hard politicians just want their name inscribed into some concrete downtown rather than really looking at the costs vs. benefit to the community.
Benefits to the city:
* make Bristol more attractive for development so developers would actually want to invest in our city
* developers investing in our city will lead to more tax revenue collected
* a more attractive Bristol (with places worth going to) would encourage people to actually come downtown.
It's called a Vision for the future.
It more delusion or alcohol induced haze than vision. Show me a place where these projects have done more than line a few pockets. How many billions of dollars have been wasted on these projects? There is no reason to believe that it will work in Bristol.
Where it works, the government builds on the success of the merchants and not the other way around.
The structural problems of downtown remain. Access is difficult. A working and middle class community does not have the wherewithal to make upscale shopping work. The neighboring areas are poor.
A true cost report:
How much of taxpayer dollars were spent and to whom.
Don't hold your breath.
Well, if they intend to spruce up the area to make it "pedestrian friendly" I hope they plant some SHADE trees so that a pedestrian CAN walk down that street in a comfortable manner when those hot summer days come!
Those dwarf trees, bark mulch bandaids, cute flower beds, and "water features", installed along N. Main are nothing but expensive eye candy. Absolutely none of that expensive infrastruction does anything to mitigate the physiological stresses (heat stress) endured by the human body attempting to traverse that concrete jungle.
"Pocket parks"? A misguideded city planner's denial of urban social vulnerablities?
Whose going to be hanging out in them? "Pocket parks? What does that have to do with perambulation? Is the city going to be installing water fountains to quench a pedestrian's thirst in such constructions? Or is this just more expensive eye candy for the law abiding, or property to be claimed for gang turf wars?
Problem is, too many high priced "design consultants" and associated construction firms slinging the BS to grab lucartive contracts. Most of them have had their butts stuck air conditioned autos far too long.
Better to have a physiologist and a policeman design our streetscapes for "pedestrian friendly" rather than some of these "planners, zoners, architects and engineers".
At least they would be focused on the real physical needs of "human being".
January 17, 2008 5:44 PM:
I understand. However true marketing experts should know that the government (by making some fancy sidewalks etc) can't create a market.
Free enterprise, capitalism and commerce is the nucleus of this country, not the government. Only RINOs and liberal, left-wing pin heads think otherwise.
Perambulation? Define please.
does that mean before you ambulate you perambulate?
perambulate = new procedure at Bristol Hospital needed for me prior to every local and state election.
I have a headache, get me an ambulance.
Per-am-bu-late:
def.
1. to travel over or through especially on foot; to traverse
2. to make an official inspection of (a boundary) on foot
syn. to stroll or ramble
opposite: (modern slang)
taxi-ass
"A true cost report: How much of taxpayer dollars were spent and to whom."
Just send Jonathan Rosenthal an email at jonathanrosenthal@ci.bristol.ct.us and ask him how much we paid the planning consultants who designed it, the engineers who did the construction drawings, the construction contractor who built it, and the construction supervisor who oversaw the construction. Let us know what he says.
1. Why should the public have to ask? The BDA should demand it, and make it part of the public record.
2. Unless someone is watching him, I would have no faith in any report he puts out.
3. It should be done by the Controllers office!
Been there, done that. Jonathan Rosenthal is too important to respond to taxpayer's emails.
Gamache we know you're not well educated but Wilson geez. I mean I hope you have an insurance dictionary because you obviously don't possess a English one in your orefice.
Is is really necessary to try and insult Mickey Goldwaser, a marketing professional, by refering to him as the "Mickster."
Is it any wonder why more professional people don't take a more active role in Bristol?
BTW, the propsals for Main and North Main are well documented necessary components of establishing a pedestrian-friendly downtown.
The recent meeting held by the BDDC at Bristol Eastern had many people in attendance that were optimistic about the prospects for Bristol's future.
It all takes time and it is recognized that the development of the downtown needs to be part of a dynamic overall development plan for the entire city.
Instead of criticizing why don't you get involved!
bob, the reason that these downtrodden fools don't get involved is because they are incapable of contributing anything positive to the process, including CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.
Unfortunately phonies like Merrick and the Mick-ster (I'm sorry I just don't like the name "Mickey") don't listen to any type of critque of their ideas, because they think they're smarter and better than anyone else.
Again, if Mickster was really so learned in regards to marketing (in my opinion) he'd realize that the cost effectiveness of grandiose sidewalk plans have virtually no effect on creating a "market". In other words, there is no market for which this so-called plan is designed for.
I'm sorry Bob I think you have no idea what you're talking about. And I think "Mickster" is kind of cute...Bobster.
It's funny how Merrick (who's been in limbo, or in some other world for 18 out of the last 20 years) is trying to latch onto a downtown plan that has been in the works since 1998. It's just like he tried to latch onto that Christmas Breakfast.
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