Easing parking woes
Easing parking woes
Pine Ridge launches major project
| The Marquette Housing Commission on Monday broke ground on a parking lot extension project at Pine Ridge Apartments. From left are architect Dave Tagget, Andy Smith of Smith Paving, housing commission board President Bill Jeeves and housing commission Executive Director Bonnie Pelto. (Journal photo by Scott Swanson) |
By SCOTT SWANSON, Journal Staff Writer
MARQUETTE — After a lengthy wait, the Marquette Housing Commission on Monday broke ground on a parking lot renovation project at Pine Ridge Apartments.
“We’re very happy this finally came to fruition,” said Bonnie Pelto, executive director of the housing commission. “It’s only taken us five-and-a-half years to get here.”
Pelto was joined on Monday by Bill Jeeves, president of the housing commission board; architect Dave Tagget; Andy Smith of Smith Paving, which will be doing the construction work; and several Pine Ridge residents.
Jeeves was given the same silver shovel that was used to break ground when Pine Ridge was built in 1967.
“We even shined it up,” Pelto said.
Under the plans, the existing front parking lot will be expanded by 31 spaces. A water retention system will be constructed at the rear of the building, necessitating the removal of the existing rear lot, which will then be reconstructed with the same vehicle capacity.
Both the front and back portions of the complex will be heavily landscaped with bushes and trees, and a wrought iron fence will be placed along the front and back of the building to shield views of the parking lot. The fence will be 4 feet tall in the front and 6 feet tall in the back.
A bus shelter will also be built in front of the building, along with covered benches.
The roughly $540,000 project will be paid for with funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Twelve percent of the annual funding the Marquette Housing Commission receives from HUD for the next 15 years will be used to fund the project.
The work is scheduled to be finished by November.
Pine Ridge lies in a historic district, so the plans had to go through a Section 106 Review — a mandatory federal process designed to ensure that historic properties are considered during project planning and execution.
Interested parties, including Pelto and neighborhood residents, met several times over the past few years to discuss the plans as part of the review. Several of the residents had expressed concerns over the plan’s effect on the historic district, safety questions and aesthetic values, among other issues.
A housing commission proposal to build a $2 million, three-story parking garage at the complex was eliminated during the review process.
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