Bangor city officials held a public forum Wednesday evening to discuss the first phase of the proposed changes to Pickering Square — one element of which the city plans to break ground on at the end of the summer.
As part of a multi-year plan to overhaul Pickering Square, phase one of the project entails re-landscaping the triangle-shaped area between the square and Merchants Plaza, fixing up the courtyard along the plaza that abuts the backsides of 44 through 60 Main St., and changing the entrance to the parking garage so that cars enter on the right side of the building, instead of the left.
“This is something we’ve been looking at for a very long time,” said city engineer John Theriault. “Our big goal is to make the city a more walkable place, with clear paths to various destinations. This removes a pretty unfortunate conflict between cars, pedestrians and the bus.”
Moving the garage entrance from the left side of the building to the right side, on the corner by Water Street, will keep vehicles away from the area where buses line up and riders gather. This eliminates a problem area in which cars, buses and people were all converging on one narrow spot, where the current garage entrance is.
Theriault said the city hopes to begin construction on the garage in late August. The project will cost an estimated $250,000, and will add an additional 15 parking spaces to the garage.
In order to change the entrance, the garage office and bathrooms will have to move out of the garage. As no new structures can be built within the floodplain of the Kenduskeag Stream, a temporary office and bathroom will be installed on the other side of Pickering Square, closer to the Maine Discovery Museum, during construction, and will remain there until phase two of the project — redesigning the bus depot and the square itself — begins sometime in 2019 or 2020.
While the new garage entrance is built, the city also plans to this fall revamp the triangle-shaped area adjacent to the square. The current design calls for a combination of pavement, brick, grass and trees to be installed after grading and drainage improvements are completed.
City officials envisioned sturdy new tables and chairs to be placed in the redesigned area, which could be removed for events like film screenings, concerts and festivals. Several people at the forum suggested other uses for the space, including installing pull up bars and other exercise equipment, playground equipment, or fruit trees and vegetable gardens.
Around 20 people came to the forum to ask questions about the planned changes. Though there was some confusion initially as to how the garage redesign and planned moving of the bathrooms would work in regards to the current configuration of the bus depot, the overall feedback from those present was generally positive.
Also discussed at the forum was the planned replacement of the footbridge over the Kenduskeag Stream, the upper part of which is crumbling and unsafe. A construction assessment on the bridge determined that it would cost around $850,000 to demolish the bridge outright, around $900,000 to repair the bridge — which would only have a lifespan of around 20 years — or $1.8 million to replace the bridge outright, which would have a 50-year lifespan.
“If you do the math, replacing the bridge outright is a much better deal,” said Theriault.
The current design for the bridge replacement involves removing the upper part of the bridge and putting a new steel truss bridge atop the otherwise sturdy foundation, or deck, of the structure. Construction on that will not begin until 2019.
Phase two of the project was not officially discussed at the forum, though what happens during phase one will affect how the bus depot and the square itself are redesigned. A transit study to help determine where to move and how to fix the bus depot has already been commissioned by the city, the results from which are anticipated in April 2019.
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