Stratford city council made a pair of decisions at their regular meeting January 13 that will have both short and long term impacts on the Erie Street parking lot, its future uses and how much it’s going to cost taxpayers.
A management report submitted to council from Taylor Crinklaw, the city’s director of infrastructure, outlined the steps that would accompany Stratford moving ahead with a proposed plan to request expressions of interest in potentially developing the parking lot into a mix of parking spaces, and retail and residential buildings. A second management report, coming from project manager Nick Sheldon, detailed the parking lot’s resurfacing tender award. Tender bids for the project closed December 18, and Steve Smith Construction of Stratford was selected as the potential winning bid ($494,747.90 including HST).
In Crinklaw’s report, two options for request of expressions of interest were presented: engaging consultants to lead the process, which expected to lead to higher-quality submissions that align with council’s vision and would need staff support over a projected 3-6 month span at a cost between $15,000-$30,000; option two would be to post a simple, single-page REOI and assess the responses. Staff input would still be needed over an estimated three months at a cost between $8,000-$10,000.
Council was split on Crinklaw’s report, as some favoured simply paving the lot to address the current disrepair it sits in. Councillor Jo-Dee Burbach said the second report that would see the tender awarded and the project beginning was ‘the simpler option’ and that it made sense to resurface it now. She did question whether or not the city would have to remove possible contaminants from the ground should they just pave it over before doing anything else.
“The land can be reused as it stands, and this report doesn’t consider a potential residential application,” Crinklaw said. “Any high-level future use would require any contaminated land being excavated.”
Asked by Coun. Lesley Biehn if there was any risk to the municipality in deferring a decision on the lot by a year while the REOI process brings in options, Crinklaw said that every year the work is delayed carries a risk.
“Resurfacing the lot is just a band-aid approach where we get rid of the slip, trip and fall hazards,” he said. “It would also ease stormwater management concerns.”
Much of the discussion revolved around whether or not any action (and money spent) would be determined by future development of the Grand Trunk project two blocks away. Coun. Bonnie Henderson favoured bringing in ideas to redevelop the Erie Street lot, pointing to Robert Ritz’s suggested underground parking/retail and residential development he proposed last year.
“We know we’ll lose parking at the Grand Trunk site when they begin work there, and we should get working on (Erie Street) because we know Grand Trunk is coming in behind it,” she said. “(By fixing the Eire Street lot), it gets more people living downtown.”
Crinklaw countered that by pointing out a more developed Grand Trunk site would better dictate how the city should use the Erie Street lot, but it was also a matter of projected cost.
“When the Grand Trunk site gets built out, we will be able to better see how we can use the land on Erie Street,” he said. “Also, building underground parking means we project a single spot coming in between $60,000-$75,000; parking at the Cooper (Grand Trunk) site would be more cost effective. A full downtown parking study applied to the Grand Trunk site is needed to understand what happens when we build it out.”
Coun. Mark Hunter added that while having options is ideal, they come with a cost of both time and money.
“Working on both the Erie Street lot and the Grand Trunk site simultaneously would be a lot for staff to take on, and they would both be expensive,” he said. “I think it’s better if we wait for the report on the Grand Trunk site to come in before we decide (about building on Erie).”
When Biehn asked if pausing the resurfacing for three months to allow for REOI to happen was a viable option, Crinklaw pointed out that the price Stratford got from Smith Construction might not be the same if they have to re-tender at a later time. Hunter then capped the discussion by intoning that urgency trumps idealism for the city right now.
“Either we do something now or we put it on a shelf and then we don’t let anyone in (to the Erie Street lot),” he said. “Given the lack of parking in the downtown area, I’m sure the public wouldn’t be happy with that idea.”
Council wound up voting to accept both reports and approving the tender award to Smith Construction.
