Webster Street Lot to get cosmetic upgrades

NORWALK, Conn. – Changes are on the way for the Webster Street Lot.

OK, not the major changes you may be thinking of in regard to the Webster Street Lot master plan, but, rather, a facelift behind 50 Washington Street and 38-48 North Main and cleaned-up trash bin areas.

This is happening while the legally mandated change at the other end of the lot has caused a bit of consternation for Parking Authority members, making information going to the new app less than reliable.

Both 50 Washington St. and 38-48 North Main St. are owned by Mike Oz.

“Our client is proposing to demolish the existing stairs, rails and ramp leading into the building (at 50 Washington St.), removing some of the existing plant material and the removal of some asphalt and bollards,” attorney Albert Vasco wrote to Norwalk Administrative Services Manager Kathryn Hebert on Sept. 18.

The project will include rearranging the building’s loading zone and parking area, and constructing a new entrance with a new set of three steps that will protrude into the Webster Street Lot. The steps will require permission from the Planning Commission and an easement from the Common Council, attorney Frank Zullo said to the Parking Authority Wednesday.

“You get to the bottom of the steps and you’d be on a curb, on a landing, if there are cars you’re basically on a sidewalk,” Eric Rains said to the Authority.

There will also be new landscaping with shrubs and trees to “soften the edge of the building primarily before the drive-through,” Rains said.

“What it winds up doing is it makes this whole section of the Webster lot just a lot softer and it transitions better to pavement,” Rains said.

“The area has been crying for a little beautification. The idea is to bring some green into the area, help improve the look of the area, soften it up,” Klaus Knorr of Capital Construction Management said.

The awkward areas behind 38-48 North Main are set to be removed, Rains said.

“What we would like to do is saw cut the existing asphalt so we have a 4-foot walkway from the face of the existing curbs to serve as sort of a collector along the building,” Rains said.

Questions included references to the city’s master plan for the lot, currently being redone.

The city is hoping to lure a developer to redo the area; the previous master plan suggests a residential development. Authority members asked what would happen if someone wanted to build on the lot; Vasco and company said the landscaping would be pulled out with 90 days-notice.

Another question concerned “kind of a blind corner,” where the driveway comes in next to the bank. Knorr said the end wall is being removed.

“I think we all know this is a building that has been crying for attention for too many years,” Zullo said. “It’s gone bankrupt more times than I can remember. It cries for attention – you’ve got a client that wants to beautify it, yes, for his own benefit but also for the benefit of the building and the area because it’s a landmark building. This is something that is not only going to help him but help the parking lot, and hopefully help invigorate this landmark building.”

The changes were unanimously approved and will go forward through Norwalk government processes.

“As long as we are able to get through the paperwork, we’re trying to have (the landscaping) done this fall,” Knorr said.

Zullo said getting the steps approved would take 3 to 4 months.

Trash bins in the lot will also look better, partially because of Oz’s project. The trash bins behind 50 Washington St. are being moved to a smaller area and plans are to put new barricades around them, with fencing and gating, Department of Public Works Director Bruce Chimento said.

“I talked with City Carting today about a new compactor and new dumpster in there,” Chimento said Wednesday. “They are going to be locking it so that nobody can get in there, so that they have the key and whoever uses it can unlock it and put stuff in there. So nobody is going to be throwing crap all over the place.”

Last week, Chimento told the SoNo Comeback Task Force that he was unhappy with trash bins at the corner of Washington and Martin Luther King, in the Webster lot.

He had also talked to City Carting about that, Chimento said Wednesday. The location will remain the same but there will be two new containers with a gate and a lock, he said.

“People are used to it there,” Chimento said. “I don’t know why it was there… the users, some of those stores, that’s what they are paying for.”

There are also plenty of residents who use the bins, he said.

“They get mad because they can’t get into the containers so they just throw it onto the ground. Now they are not going to be able to get into the enclosure,” Chimento said.

On the other end of the lot the city has installed a 2-inch lip to differentiate city property from private property, as part of the legal settlement of Dominic Sammarco versus Norwalk. But drivers are confused, Hebert said.

A curb cut was installed on Martin Luther King Drive to allow drivers to enter the parking lot for 64-84 North Main St. without going through the Webster lot. The city legally can’t close the private lot off from the public lot, hence the 2-inch lip.

“People are backing up and they’re exiting the wrong way,” Hebert said, with a laugh.

Ah, but it’s throwing off the Authority’s recently installed counting system. There are no “loops” in the pavement there, Laz Parking Vice President Stathis Manousos said, referring to electronic detectors.

“It’s throwing that off now because people aren’t exiting and entering over the loops that we have cut in the ground that are doing the counts,” Manousos said. “So they’re exiting, they’re cutting in through there, we have no way of knowing who has come in now.”

That means that the Authority’s parking app has inaccurate information for the Webster Street lot.

The loops need to be figured out, but the logistics are challenged, Manousos said. There might be a way to landscape the opening to make it less confusing, members said, and perhaps markings can be put in when the lot is painted.

“Once they get this thing painted let’s talk about the signage,” Hebert said.

Sammarco sued the city in 2007 after parking booths were installed in the lot. When the Council moved to settle the situation in July, Sammarco protested that the curb cuts would tie up traffic.

He wouldn’t let the city off the hook for an easement, though. The Redevelopment Agency said the easement had to go because it could impede development of the lot.

Turns out Sammarco might have been right about the curb cut.

“When I went there today there were like eight cars backed up to get out,” Hebert said.

On the other hand, drivers can also exit through the Webster Street lot, but they’re going the wrong way, Hebert said.