Second design for Independence Lane revealed

It’s been a bumpy road for Maitland City Council members as they’ve worked to decide what the city’s main street should look like as developments begin to rise around it.

The first design proposal for Independence Lane’s makeover into a “festival street” was shot down in April of this year, after a year’s worth of planning, for being too expensive. The second one received tentative approval on Monday with a price tag at roughly $1 million less than the original. The Council approved the landscape architect’s 30-percent-complete design, allowing the process to continue to a 60-percent design in the coming months.

GAI Consultants’ design is sticking to the $1.2 million budget outlined by the City Council in April. The first design, done by Dix-Hite & Partners, topped out at $2.2 million before being cut down to its bare bones at $1.6 million.

“Now I think we’re on the right track,” Councilman John Lowndes said during the Council meeting on Aug. 22.

The new design, which the consultants presented to Council in a workshop on Aug. 16, features reclaimed brick pavers to cut down on costs, and creates a curb-less street geared toward pedestrian and multimodal traffic.

“It’s about pedestrians,” said Kevin Aust, a landscape architect with GAI. “…It’s not really a place that we wanted to maximize the use of cars.”

Aust said the design will feature a more urban feel on the eastside of Independence along the under-construction Maitland City Centre project, and be more park-like on the westside bordering the park. In the plans, catenary lighting illuminates the center third of the street crisscrossing overhead. And, it features the same style benches, trashcans and bike racks used throughout the city today.

“If the desire is to gather people together, this is clearly a place that invites people in,” City Manager Sharon Anselmo said at the workshop.

Mayor Dale McDonald was the only member of Council to vote against the plans on Monday. McDonald said at the Aug. 16 workshop that he would never “in a thousand years” vote for plan that doesn’t prioritize adding more street parking to the westside of the road.

The current design adds three additional parking spots in addition to the 28 spots Independence Lane boasts today, with parallel parking lining each side.

Councilwoman Bev Reponen said she is pleased to see things falling into place, as the city’s new master plan and Independence Lane plans start to come together.

“I like the idea that we have the beginnings of ideas of what our goal is so therefore we can start fitting pieces into it,” she said.