With the long discussed and long awaited Mack building redevelopment project about to get underway, the planned partial road closure for Jackson Street during the early part of the construction was a topic of discussion at the Chelsea Downtown Development Authority meeting on May 17.
Pending Chelsea City Council approval on Monday, the road will be closed on the Main Street side and safety fencing will be erected from May 29 through July 13.
To assist in redirecting folks to Farmers Supply, the Chelsea Area Historical Society Museum and The Depot during the construction, signage will be erected for motorists that will alert them to the road closure, and direct them to East Middle Street. From there motorists can turn into the driveway beside the Chelsea First Congregational Church or travel to East Street or Madison to access Jackson Street.
Drivers can also take Dewey to McKinley to Jackson Street from the other direction.
In addition, signs are expected to be erected that say businesses remain open during the road closure.
Plus, the city is helping Farmers Supply with flyers to hand out to customers to assist them in navigating the road closure.
Greg Raye, an owner of Farmers Supply, appealed to both the City Council at a previous meeting and at the DDA meeting Thursday morning, explaining that his 92-year-old business will suffer thousands of dollars in losses because of the road closure.
He told the DDA that although he supports the project, spring is the busiest sales season for Farmers Supply, and the road closure is “a huge penalty for us to pay.” He said the signage would help, but requested that the closure be pushed back two weeks.
Developer Joe Ziolkowski told the DDA that spring is also a busy time for contractors and he has lined up a number of them to perform various portions of the redevelopment process, which include removing the roof and the second floor, which will leave just the walls standing. They must be buttressed while additional work takes place inside the shell.
“I’m trying to put a lid on the project before it gets too cold,” Ziolkowski said and disrupting the succession of contractors would cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, making it cost prohibitive to try and push things back.
In addition, Ziolkowski has a grant deadline of April 2019 he must meet.
In other discussions, City Manager John Hanifan told the DDA that the Palmer event space project is a couple of weeks behind schedule, but work is progressing on the project and weather-permitting, a hard surface should be in place by July 2. Once completed, it’s expected that the city will hold an open house and the process for formally naming the space will begin.
The city is continuing its discussions with Ann Arbor Spark representatives and the realtor handling the sale of the Federal Screw property to see what it would take to have a deed restriction lifted that prohibits a residential component be built on the site.
Although the city does not own the property, it is in the DDA district and Mayor Melissa Johnson and Hanifan are trying to assist in the process of having a mixed-use project on that gateway site.
To view a video of the meeting, please click here for a video produced by Randy Lee of RK Studios.
