The City of Fort Collins hosted a second open house Sept. 30 to highlight its plans for the Linden Street renovation in Old Town. The project design team presented its ideas and gathered feedback from the community.
“The City envisions transforming Linden Street into a more vibrant, pedestrian-oriented urban street within the core of Old Town Fort Collins,” wrote project manager Kyle Lambrecht in an email to The Collegian.
The project will convert the small stretch of Linden Street between Jefferson Street and Walnut Street into a “convertible street.”
According to the project website, a “convertible street” is a roadway that can be closed to traffic and transformed into a pedestrian gathering space during specialty events.
“The project itself is not scheduling new events in this space,” Jill Marx, public relations coordinator, wrote in an email to The Collegian. “The renovated street will be able to support current Fort Collins events like NewWestFest.”
Along with allowing for street events, the project aims to bridge the gap between Old Town Square and the River District and maintain year-round economic vitality along Linden Street.
The City envisions transforming Linden Street into a more vibrant, pedestrian-oriented urban street.” -Kyle Lambrecht, Linden Street renovation project manager
“The project team has had 75 conversations with interested stakeholders,” Lambrecht wrote. “The majority of the stakeholders are excited about the project and support the City’s recommended design alternative.”
A major concern with the project is the change in on-street parking availability.
In the design suggestions, parking will change from diagonal spaces to parallel spaces, reducing the total availability.
“The project team has reached out to community members through two open houses and through various presentations to boards, commissions and business associations,” Lambrecht wrote. “Many support the City’s recommended design, and others have concerns on the reduction of on-street parking. The City has developed strategies to mitigate these concerns.”
One alternative to this parking issue is the newly-built Firehouse Alley parking structure, which charges $1.50 an hour. There will still be three handicap-accessible parking spaces along the street, the same as the current situation.
Construction is anticipated to start in spring 2020 and complete in fall 2020.
“The project team has not scheduled or addressed detailed construction phasing yet,” Marx wrote. “We do know we will schedule the construction to move as efficiently as possible during one construction season while maintaining access to every business on the street during construction.”
Serena Bettis can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @serenaroseb.
