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July 19, 2012

City gets a ‘building boost’ on North Street

By Mary Spicer Meadville Tribune

MEADVILLE — With Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s long-awaited North Street Project moving closer and closer to the expected 2013 start of construction, a significant piece of the puzzle fell into place Wednesday during Meadville City Council’s monthly meeting.

It was announced that Porter Consulting Engineers PC, one of the businesses about to be displaced by eminent domain proceedings to make way for the PennDOT improvements, plans to relocate to 552 State St., where its engineering/consulting business will occupy the building that formerly served as the S.B. Dick Hose Company volunteer fire station.

By the time PennDOT’s project is finished sometime in 2014, North Street from Water to Grove streets will have taken on a whole new appearance. Although the width of the roadway will remain unchanged, the turning ratio at the corners will become noticeably wider, making it faster and easier for large trucks entering and leaving the North Street corridor to negotiate turns.

In many cases, buildings occupying corner properties are already set far enough back from the roadway that they will be unaffected by the change. In fact, when new structures were built at the Liberty Street intersection in recent years, placement on their lots was designed with PennDOT’s plans in mind.

However, other plans had to be made at three corners. On the northeast corner of North and Liberty street, the Kwik Fill gas station will be taken down when the new Kwik Fill station at the intersection of North and State streets is complete. On the northeast corner of North and Park Avenue, plans have not yet been announced for accommodating the change that will bring the roadway very close to the current home of Little Caesar’s Pizza.

Although it had already been announced that the Porter Consulting Engineers PC building on the northwest corner of North and North Main streets would be removed, the site of the company’s new Meadville offices had not been revealed until Wednesday, when council approved a resolution authorizing an agreement with Meadville Redevelopment Authority that will turn the city-owned property over to the authority.

In turn, the redevelopment authority plans to enter into a development agreement with PCE to assist in the development, which will include several adjacent properties currently owned by the authority. When development is complete, the PCE property will be adjacent to the new Kwik Fill gas station.

In accordance with an appraisal of the property that was updated on July 6 to ensure that the city receives full fair market value, the city has set the selling price of the property to the redevelopment authority at $72,000.

Additional plans have not yet been announced and Ashley Porter, president of PCE, was not available for comment Wednesday night. The firm is currently working with the redevelopment authority on the transformation of the former armory on Diamond Park into Meadville’s new city building.



Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.

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