Park Avenue subsidence: Reminder of unfinished UCIA checklist

Park Avenue begins to subside after UCIA fails to rebuild street.

Plainfield's Park Avenue between Front and Second Streets is sinking. Again.

The UCIA was supposed to reconstruct the street as part of the Park-Madison project which included constructing the new County office building, parking deck and retail buildings along West Front Street.

Emergency repairs had been done in the first term of the late Mayor Al McWilliams using some available funds. But it was acknowledged at the time that the repairs were temporary and not permanent, owing to the limited funds; only making Park Avenue safe to use until the street would subside again at some future point.

Where does the problem come from?

Back in the early 1960s, as part of the 'urban renewal' program that saw the shops, theaters and churches of the Park-Madison block razed, the awkward dog-leg intersections of Park Avenue and Front and Somerset Streets was reconfigured to remove the need for traffic-clogging double red lights.

At the time, the buildings were simply knocked down and the rubble bulldozed level and covered with fill. For years, the vacant lot was used primarily as a municipal parking lot. Under Mayor Harold Mitchell, the site was spiffed up with landscaping, a gazebo and benches, giving it a park-like air which lasted until the UCIA project.

All the while, the rubble on which the 'new' Park Avenue section was built continued to shift as air pockets collapsed, eventually leading to the emergency precipitating the stopgap repair measures.

This vintage photo shows the dog-leg intersection at Park and Front.

As Plainfield Today pointed out in a series of three previous stories (see links at bottom of this post), reconstruction of the roadbed by the UCIA was one of several checklist items from the Park-Madison development that remain uncompleted.

Here is the list (items that have since been completed are identified by text with a strikethrough) --

• Park Avenue Reconstruction -- Not even begun, though the City already paid for it.
• Relocation of the Park Jewelers Clock to the Plaza -- This is the famous clock from 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'.
• Plaza Repairs (NOTE: Some have been made, but this is an ongoing problem) -- The decorative fake brick oval surrounding the center of the Plaza is ALREADY cracked in many places.
• Streetscape -- There is a dispute over the failure to plant the Liberty Elms originally specified.
• Use of the Plaza -- Who will issue permits for events on the Plaza, the City or the County?
• Parking Meters -- The City was supposed to gather revenue from meters in the parking lot; none installed.
• Parking Deck -- Citizen parking in deck on evenings, weekends is supposed to be allowed.
• Dumpsters -- Screening dumpsters from public view has not been implemented.

Of the eight items, only two (minor ones at that) have been addressed.

Also note that there are questions about whether the project is still functioning under a 'temporary' Certificate of Compliance, and whether Plainfield is getting shafted on the formulation for the annual PILOT payments.

Time for Mayor Robinson-Briggs to revisit the unresolved issues?

Yes, hopefully before a sinkhole swallows up someone driving down Park Avenue.

---

• Plainfield Today --
• October 10, 2006: "The Joy of UCIA (Park-Madison)"
• October 11, 2006: "The Joy of UCIA (Park-Madison: The PILOT)"
• October 13, 2006: "The Joy of UCIA: 13 for the 13th"
  

-- Dan Damon [follow]

View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.