Yesterday on News Talk 1370 WCOA’s “Pensacola Speaks,” Downtown Improvement Board chair John Peacock discusses a proposal on how to make Jefferson Street more walkable.
“What we saw today was how to make both the west side of the street and the east side of the street match from Garden all the way down to Government Street, and make it a clean, safe place for people to walk,” said Peacock. “We hired, through an RFP process, a Jerry Pate Company. They proposed a very attractive, aesthetically pleasing proposal on how we can do this.”
Finding the funding will be challenge. He said, “Parts of we’ll probably be able to afford to do. Parts of it won’t. It will be taking impervious parts of the streets and making it water penetrable so that we can help also with the storm water runoff that we have a problem with downtown. It’s not just about safety. It’s about the infrastructure issues that we’ve had to deal with for years downtown.”
Over 110 parking spaces are being removed from DIB area with the recent sale of two parking lots bought by Mr. Studer and Southtown Apts have requested allocated spots be given to their retail tenants.
Jefferson street is set to lose more than 25 spaces and the loading zone at Garden and Jefferson is being eliminated for planters and walkways by Vinyl and the parking garage.
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Lost parking spaces will have a serious impact on businesses that need delivery trucks to load and unload.
None of the effected businesses were asked for input from Pate’s designers and engineers.
The DIB parking committee pointed out practical design flaws based on what was presented.
Steve from Pate, explained they were asked to design a more walker friendly area ONLY, though they did go above and beyond with the design of water drainage.
When you eliminate street parking, you eliminate the older generations. The older generations support the high end retail on Palafox.