Council tables DePauw request to close portion of College Ave.

The closing of College Avenue is no open-and-shut case for the Greencastle City Council.

Admonishing DePauw University officials for being unresponsive to previous questions and not coming forward with a request to close College between Hanna and Olive streets until their timetable was already narrow, the City Council Thursday night voted to table first reading of an ordinance to vacate that portion of the north-south street.

“This is a major thing, abandoning a street where scores of cars go up and down every day, right? It’s a major thing,” Councilman Gary Lemon said, recalling how the Council first saw details of the DePauw proposal during a Feb. 21 work session.

“We had a meeting,” Lemon continued,”and I thought the materials brought at that time were inadequate. I stated that at the time, and said, ‘I need some more information.’ I set a deadline of March 1 -- several people did -- and I’ve heard nothing until tonight.”

He’s not prepared to make a snap decision on the closure, Lemon said, noting that a handful of local residents voiced concerns during the public hearing portion of Thursday night’s meeting, questioning traffic patterns, drainage issues and even less-user-friendly handicap access to the Performing Arts Center (PAC) and Lilly Center in the aftermath of the proposed street closing.

“For me, this is a big deal, vacating a street,” Lemon reiterated. “I’m sure what’s going to happen is two weeks from now there will be a bunch of papers in front of me and I’ll be asked to vote again, and I haven’t had time to think about it.”

Lemon, who is economics professor at DePauw, said the university’s presentation was better Thursday night as it addressed such matters as parking, an estimated $750,000 to $1 million drainage project that will also benefit the city and the timing of turning the College Street Hall (the former Lambda Chi fraternity house south of Olive Street on College Avenue) into a parking lot to help serve the Lilly Center and PAC.

“There are things that have been said tonight that I hadn’t heard,” Councilman Lemon noted. ”I don’t think it’s fair to the citizens of Greencastle to abandon a street when we’ve only been talking about it (for a couple weeks) ... DePauw must have been talking about this for months, right? This is not something that came up in the last three or four weeks.

“They come in and say, ‘We’ve got to do it now.’ ‘We’re under deadline, we’re under deadline.’ Well, you should have been thinking about this before,” Lemon said.

Discussion of Ordinance 2019-2 on first reading began with Councilman Dave Murray making a motion to approve it on first reading with the stipulation of including “an acceptable memorandum of understanding” addressing issues that were brought up during the public hearing earlier.

“And I don’t think it should come up again for second reading,” Murray added, “until we have a draft memorandum of understanding.

“I think you folks have addressed the major issues that concerned us in the working session,” he continued, “but I still want to see that MOU . I’m hoping the will of the Council is we’ll want to see the memorandum of understanding before we vote a second time.”

Murray pointed to money to be saved by the city in terms of infrastructure repairs through the DePauw proposal, noting that College Avenue would no longer need to be repaved or maintained between Hanna and Olive streets.

“It’s the handicap access that’s the only thing that sitting out there for me,” he said.

Councilman Lemon said he also wants the memorandum to be able to see the DePauw promises in writing.

“I want to see everything,” Lemon said, “and then I can make a rational decision.”

Meanwhile, Councilman Tyler Wade said he favored tabling the issue because there are “significant enough questions that I think still need to be addressed in order to feel comfortable with moving forward.”

Among those, Wade noted, is a concern about wrong-way traffic that already exists on South College Avenue, an issue brought forth by resident Michele Villinski, along with an increase in traffic “especially from College to Olive to Jackson through the parking lot and finding a way to make that happen in a more safe fashion,” Wade said.

“Thirdly, I think it’s important to address entrances to Kresge (auditorium within the PAC) and the Lilly Center, especially for handicapped residents,” suggesting that

“closing a street and folks having to walk a lot farther to get into either building” does not seem like a good idea.

“I think those are three things I say definitely need to be addressed,” Wade added.

Council President Adam Cohen, who owns a home on Park Street south of the Olive-College area, agreed with another Villinski criticism that the preponderance of parking lots in the area, especially once College Street Hall is razed, seems “depressing” to drive by every day. Cohen suggested that plantings and screenings could help clean up those parking lot lines.

Tackling other suggested issues, Cohen said, “I’m not sure the handicapped stuff is within our jurisdiction. We really can’t require them to do that as long as you’re meeting code.”

“And I go back and forth on this Jackson Street thing. I know a lot of people want that,” he added, alluding to traffic flow that would send vehicles across Olive, into the parking lots south of the Peeler Center or adjacent to the Physical Plant, where they would wind their way over to South Jackson Street.

“I don’t know that it’s a solution,” Councilman Wade responded, “but it’s something we do need to think about.”

Cohen said Jackson Street needs to be addressed but he certainly doesn’t want to make it worse.

“I just think Jackson’s dangerous enough,” he said. “We’ve got enough problems on that street now, and we’re going to dump more traffic on it at a curved point (in the road) where 100 yards up there’s going to be another dump of traffic. I’m not sure that makes sense to me.

“I’d like to hear from an expert on that before we cut through Olive Street. It’s expensive to cut through, and I don’t want to make a bad situation worse.”

Councilor Stacie Langdon asked about DePauw’s timeline for the project, which it hopes to commence this spring with moving utility lines and getting underground work done before students return for fall classes.

“The timing is pretty much very critical,” DePauw spokesman Warren Whitesell said.

“The reason for that, if that doesn’t pass, if affects the design. We need to bid the design so that the contractor can order materials,” he said, including storm structures for the stormwater project that is proposed to alleviate flooding along College Avenue and its environs.

“Those will all have to be made,” Whitesell said, adding that “excavations are very deep, and those will take some time.”

“So for us to coordinate that work in order to get it done by the start of the student school year, that is a significant amount of work. It’s dangerous work because it’s very deep.”

In the original timetable shared last month, Whitesell said College Street Hall was to be taken down in 2024, the final phase of the five-year project that will replace the residence halls in the university’s south quad. City officials had suggested razing that building early on to provide additional parking to compensate for what was to be lost along College Street (22 spaces) and other areas.

“We can’t bring that forward to 2019,” Whitesell advised, because of the chiller yard presence on the property that is used to cool nearby university structures. Those chillers will be decommissioned in 2020, he said, allowing for a new parking lot to be built.

This summer, Whitesell added, a dozen new temporary parking spaces will be created on what is now a grassy area north of College Street Hall.

Once the project gets through the following season, the building could be eliminated, he said.

Lemon made a motion to table Ordinance 2019-2, which was seconded by Wade. The measure passed 4-0 with Councilman Murray abstaining after making the original motion for passage on first reading (two readings are necessary for adoption).

“I think it’s a mistake,” Murray said of not passing the ordinance on first reading, saying it was “slowing the process down.”

He said second reading would not be approved until the Council received a satisfactory memorandum of understanding anyway.

Councilmen Mark Hammer and Steve Fields were absent for Thursday’s March regular session.