Downtown 'Pockets' Will Be The Subject Of Two Meetings March 29

The city’s plan to install temporary “pockets” outside of downtown restaurants that will allow outdoor dining during sunny weather will be discussed at two meetings on March 29, said Public Works Director Dave Scola on Monday.

The so-called “pockets” are now in place on the 500 block of Main Street. The city’s plan to remove the pockets last year caused an outcry from those merchants, who say theirs is now the busiest block in town, largely due to the pockets.

But Scola said the 500 block project, installed for $6,000 12 years ago as a one-year experiment, needs to be redone to city code. There are drainage problems, and the one-way configuration of the street creates confusion with drivers, he said.

He said city officials agree that the idea has worked well, and needs to be extended to other blocks on Main and throughout the downtown. The way to do that, he said, is to create removable platforms that could be used during spring and summer, and removed during the late fall and winter. The platforms would take up one or two parking spaces, he said.

But, he added, the 500 block experiment, while successful, must be removed.

“What’s there now doesn’t meet any standards, so it has to come out,” Scola said. “The construction was pretty substandard, there are drainage issues, there are no parking meters. The street there is too narrow. There were a lot of concerns Public Works had in 1998, but it was allowed to stay because it was only supposed to be for one season. How 12 years passed, I don’t know. I wasn’t in Public Works then.” 

He added that when Main Street was paved last summer, the 500 block could not be included because of the pockets.

But merchants on the block are wary of changes to a design they say is working well.

“I’m looking forward to the meeting,” said Pat English, owner of Haute Stuff, which has used the pockets for outdoor dining since their inception. “I’m anxious to see the plan they have for creating the same amazing ambiance we have down here now, and not hurting us economically. Those are my concerns.”

Anne Mobley, who owns White Rabbit Boutique, said she collected over 800 signatures on a petition she presented last summer to the City Council, requesting to keep the 500 block pockets in place, and the street one-way.

"This project has given the downtown ambiance and character," the petition read. "We do not feel that the plan to spend $200,000 on fixing a street that has worked for the past ten years is necessary, financially prudent, or well thought out." The reference is to the amount of money the city is planning to spend on repaving the 500 block. 

"To destroy what works for something that we don't know will work seems like the way this Council does business," Mobley added. 

Dick Duncan, who led the design and engineering of the 500 block in 1999, said Monday that the council should install the temporary pockets on other blocks and see how it works, before dismantling the 500 block.

“Leave the 500 block alone, put together a good clean viable plan and see if we can make the rest of Main Street as good or better than the 500 block, and then come back and make the 500 block conform with what’s going on,” Duncan said.

Downtown property owner Earl Dunivan said the pocket experiment has clearly worked, and said it’s time to find a way to make it permanent throughout the downtown.

“I think the pilot was great,” he said. “It proved that the pockets have a place downtown. Now it’s time to go on to a permanent solution.”

And while the merchants on the 500 block say the one-way street configuration is working well, and should be extended all the way to Court Street, Dunivan said that one-way streets are confusing.

“I think one-way streets in general are not customer friendly,” Dunivan said. “I talk to a lot of potential customers that find it frustrating to park and circulate downtown.”

Scola said the issue of one-way street configurations will not be discussed at the March 29 meeting, but will instead be the subject of a separate meeting later in the year.

The downtown pocket meeting will be the subject of the City Council’s Economic Development Subcommittee, which is comprised of councilmembers Janet Kennedy and Lara DeLaney. There will be two meetings – one at 2 p.m. and another at 6 p.m. for those who can’t make the afternoon meeting. It will take place in the council chambers, 525 Henrietta St.