Renewal concerns business owners

Most of the concerns are unfounded or are unavoidable, the director said.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Recently poured concrete sidewalks and road foundations are revealing how a rebuilt Federal Street truly will work.
A few downtown business operators are raising questions as they see the design become reality. They wonder about the design of the sidewalks, street and the diagonal parking spots along it.
Despite the concerns, plans aren't going to change now, three months into construction.
There are reasons for what's happening, said Carmen Conglose Jr., deputy city director of public works. The city combined public input and engineering necessities to come up with a design that should work well for most downtown, he said.
"I think we've done a pretty good job of that," Conglose said. "Unfortunately, we can't please everyone."
Large sidewalks
The most pronounced design elements are large stretches of sidewalk at Federal Street corners.
Sidewalks at the corners will be as wide as the 85 cars are long that will park diagonally between them. That's in addition to 16-foot regular sidewalks. Those sidewalks take up space along the street that some envisioned as parking spots, too.
All that sidewalk and parking leave a single driving lane in each direction.
There also will be four concrete landscaped plazas at each corner where Market Street or Wick Avenue meets Federal Street.
"That's what we tried to get out from the plaza," said a leading critic, Dr. Fredric D'Amato. "This is not Mill Creek Park."
None of the rest make sense, either, to D'Amato, an ophthalmologist who has an office in the Metropolitan Tower and owns a building on Federal Street.
The design also seemingly doesn't give buses room to pull over, leaves no space for delivery trucks to unload and provides few handicap parking spaces near downtown's main buildings, he said.
Many city residents are older and don't drive or are handicapped, so bus access and parking near buildings they would use are vital, he said. Businesses along Federal need delivery access to keep their locations viable, he said.
"Who are you serving?" D'Amato asked. "I'm not an engineer, but I see common sense."
He also questions a traffic pattern that doesn't seem to align for cars and trucks coming into the new street from each direction.
"We're looking for an accident to happen," D'Amato said.
The conspicuous sidewalks are drawing the attention of Barry Silver, owner of Silver's Vogue Shop at Federal and Phelps Street. There is no need for sidewalks that wide, he said.
"A 12-foot sidewalk would have been sufficient," he said.
Three doors down
In addition, the first parking spot on his side of the street will be three doors down from Silver's. He expected spots to be closer to all businesses on the street.
It may be hard to picture now, but most of the concerns either are unfounded or are unavoidable, Conglose said.
Last week, Conglose addressed specific points:
USidewalks are wide and long at corners for engineering reasons. The space is needed to give a car or truck enough space to pull out of a spot and properly move into the driving lane. Parking can't be close to corners. "Those transitions are very important," he said. "These are design standards everyone uses. This is something that has to be factored into the design."
UA majority of downtown stakeholders -- particularly the banks -- asked for diagonal parking on the street and concrete plazas on the central square instead of parking.
"They didn't want the project to look like a big parking lot," he said.
UThere isn't enough space between the buildings to have diagonal parking plus more than one traffic lane.
UThe single traffic lanes will be wide enough for drivers to pull over and emergency vehicles to get through, even with cars parked on each side and the traffic lanes full. There will be space where buses and delivery trucks can pull out of traffic.
UThere will be 10 handicap spaces scattered on the new street, more than the federal government requires. There will be two spots on each side of the street between Phelps and Market-Wick. There also will be three spots each between Market-Wick and Champion Street and Champion and Walnut Street.
ULanes will be aligned so traffic flows straight into and out of the new construction.
The existing Federal at Walnut has parallel parking and two driving lanes. The outside lanes will become right and left turn-only lanes. The inside lanes will move traffic westbound straight into the new construction.
The existing Federal at Phelps has parallel parking and one driving lane. There is enough space for traffic and cars parked on Federal to get into the eastbound traffic lane moving and into the new construction.
The design has its good and bad points, said Jason Logero, an owner of the Bean Counter Cafe on Federal near Market-Wick.
Extra sidewalk space is nice for businesses like his and will be handy during events at the nearby downtown arena, he said.
Two traffic lanes would nice, too, he said, but the important thing is the street is open and has parking in the vicinity.
"You need a place to pull in and go," Logero said.
rgsmith@vindy.com