By Andrew Coen
According to Village of Lawrence Mayor Dr. Jack Levenbrown, the village is in the preliminary stages of redesigning the business district. The project would include the remodeling of the municipal parking lot between Frost Lane and Rockaway Turnpike, which would add at least 20 spaces to the lot. In addition, seven more spaces would be added to the parking lot behind the Super Sol supermarket.
We're trying to strike a balance between the needs of the merchants in the businesses nearby and the needs of the shopper, said Levenbrown. Having more parking spots will meet some of these needs.
The new designed parking lot would change the angle of the parking spaces so that cars would park perpendicular to the curb, which, according to Levenbrown, would make room for the extra spaces. We have every reason to believe that we will be able to add at least 20 parking spots, he said.
The lot currently has 155 parking spaces, with an entrance off Rockaway Turnpike and exit on Frost Lane. The new design would allow cars to enter and exit from both Rockaway Turnpike and Frost Lane, according to Levenbrown.
An architectural firm is scheduled to study the project within the next week, which will be followed by a bidding process and approval sometime early next year. Completion of construction is expected no earlier than March or April.
While the lot is being reconfigured, one challenge facing the village will be offering drivers other parking options. We are quite cognizant of the need to provide parking during the construction phase, said Levenbrown. We're going to give it a lot of thought.
In addition to the expansion of the municipal lot, part of the business district project will involve improving access to the parking lot behind Super Sol.
We are planning to greatly improve the traffic flow, said Levenbrown of the current parking lot, which has few options for exiting. The preliminary plan, according to Levenbrown, is to widen Williams Street, from which cars exit, and make it two-way so that cars can exit onto Central Avenue as well.
That sounds very good, since that is a very high-traffic area, said Super Sol manager David Gross.
Since the Super Sol lot is more narrow than the municipal lot, the angles of the spots cannot be changed, which means only seven spaces could be added, according to Levenbrown.
Gross is still not happy about the fees for village parking meters, which were raised last month. I personally hope it is not affecting our business, said Gross. Some people are parking in other areas, where it's a little easier, and some are walking to work.
At the Sept. 10 village board meeting, Lawrence Village trustees voted unanimously to increase the parking meter fees, upping the short-term parking from a dime to a quarter for every half hour and increasing the cost of long-term parking from 25 cents for every two hours to a quarter for every hour.
David Klar, who owns Tasty Heimish Bakery, thinks the meter change and the possibility of adding parking spaces is good for his business, but not necessarily good for his employees. I believe it's good for business, because there are more spaces opening up, but on the other hand, I feel bad for the people that work here all day, said Klar. It's definitely important for the businesses to have more parking spots available around here.
Dan Manchroff, manager of Jerusalem Famous Kosher Pizza, agreed that the parking meter fee increase has not been much of a problem since it began a month ago. I haven't really seen any big complaints from anyone, said Manchroff. I'd say it's gone very smooth.
Manchroff is also happy about the additional spots that will be constructed shortly. It's definitely going to be a big help, a big boost, he said.
The parking increases have especially had an impact on the three schools in the vicinity of the municipal parking lot: Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway Middle School, The Brandeis School and Rambam Mesivta High School. An office manager at Rambam Mesivta said the parking fees have been an inconvenience for teachers. A lot of teachers have to leave in the middle of class to put money in their meters, said the office manager, who identified herself only as Naomi. It has made a difficult situation even more difficult. We're hoping that if we can work together with the village, we can come up with a solution that can be satisfactory for the schools and the village.
She said she doesn't think the 20 extra parking spaces that are slated to be added are the solution to the problem. That doesn't help the teachers who are in class for more than hour and have to constantly check their meters, she said.
The Village of Lawrence currently has about 400 metered parking spaces, compared with 1,200 in neighboring Cedarhurst.
