Ann Arbor residents discuss Wall Street garage
Lewaa Bahmad
For the DailyMay 22nd, 2013
Residents of Ann Arbor's Wall Street neighborhood met with University officials Wednesday to discuss the controversial construction of a new parking structure in the neighborhood.
The planned brick and concrete structure aims to add 500 more parking spaces as well as spaces for motorcycles and bicycles to accommodate for the growth of the University Health System. Residents are upset with the project and argue the expansion would pollute the neighborhood, increase traffic and threaten the safety of pedestrians.
University Planner Sue Gott, and James Kosteva, the University’s director of community relations, led the meeting and spoke on behalf of the University at the community meeting held at the Brehm Center on Wall Street.
“This is a group we’ve met with for a number of years,” Gott said before the meeting. “I’m sure it will be constructive.”
The parking structure is meant to serve as a satellite structure to the University Hospital. Hospital employees will have to park in the structure and take a shuttle to the hospital, which requires the construction of a waiting station for the bus service. Construction will begin June 13th and the structure will be completed in the spring of 2014.
The plans for the parking structure were initially proposed in 2008 but were postponed after the city of Ann Arbor agreed to a joint effort with the University to construct a parking structure on Fuller Road instead. Since then, the University dropped the Fuller Road plans in favor of the Wall Street parking structure as a result of the city’s inability to hold up its portion of the funding.
While the University has said the construction of the structure is definite, residents are adamant about expressing their contentions with it. The residents expressed positive comments about the increased level of communication and claimed the University has been more open about the project than it was in 2008.
They were, however, disappointed with the fact that there was no general contractor present at the meeting. Residents said they desired a point of contact with an official on-site so that they could communicate about expected grievances and complaints when construction begins.
Residents said they were alarmed by a number of potential problems with construction. The chief concerns expressed at the meeting were noise, air and groundwater pollution, in addition to increased automotive congestion and pedestrian safety.
Ann Arbor resident Rosemary Sarri was also concerned about the living quality of the area.
“This used to be a neighborhood,“ Sarri said. “They wiped it out.”
Jim Koli, owner of Northside Grill, echoed Sarri’s comments, saying that in the 19 years he has owned his restaurant there have been significant changes to the neighborhood.
“The University is slowly buying up all the property between Wall Street and Maiden Lane for the last 20 years,” Koli said. “There used to be a vibrant neighborhood in there … I have watched that customer base of ours slowly disappear into surface parking lots.”
Koli said he was concerned about the impact that the construction of the garage would have on the number of his customers.
“The one problem when the University moves into an area is that they are really Monday through Friday, eight to five,” Koli said. “The people who park there are going to park and go.”
In order to limit noise and vibrations, the construction will employ drilling methods, as opposed to pounding mechanisms, for moving earth and constructing foundations. Electric motors will be used to power the site as opposed to less environmentally friendly methods. A full-time street sweeper will also be deployed for dust control.
Air pollution will also be minimized by spraying the site with water and using a dust-collection fabric on the fence surrounding the construction. There will be on-site, full-time traffic support to the team in order to ensure that there are no trucks idling on the streets. The University is also prepared to employ a “prepared to fire” policy to ensure that construction workers adhere to the needs of the community.
“We’ve provided construction plans and are ready to start,” Kosteva said. “We do expect this to be utilized primarily by personnel working at the hospital and medical center.”
—Correction Appended: A previous version of this article misquoted a statement by Ann Arbor resident Eliana Moya-Raggio
Printed from www.michigandaily.com on Mon, 27 May 2013 14:21:16 -0400