Repairing the Plaza

Crews to begin replacing cracked concrete near obelisk, bandstand next week

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

3/27/2008 - 3/28/08

About 1,500 square feet of concrete on the Santa Fe Plaza will be replaced beginning next week.

In addition, city officials are looking into installing bollards at the intersection of Palace and Washington avenues, and restoring the left-hand turn onto Washington for traffic leaving the Plaza.

Most of the dozen downtown merchants attending a brief meeting about the plans at City Hall on Thursday reacted favorably.

Chip Lilienthal, an engineer with the Public Works Department, said the Plaza work will be done by Advantage Asphalt of Santa Fe for $131,000.

It begins Monday with the erection of a fence around the obelisk and bandstand. By Tuesday, crews will begin demolishing the cracked and damaged concrete there.

Lilienthal said the city has a waiver from noise restrictions so jackhammers can be used. He said only one truck and one "Bobcat" will be parked near the Plaza during construction.

The work, which includes widening the handicapped ramp on the northwest corner of the Plaza, should be completed by the end of April, he said.

Most of the 1-acre Plaza is covered by grass sod, flagstone or brick walkways — none of which will be disturbed by the work. However, Public Works Director Robert Rivera said he is looking into using some of the $20 million park-improvement bond issue approved by county voters in November for additional Plaza improvements.

Lilienthal said this work, which would require City Council approval and would not begin until this fall at the soonest, would include replacing broken and damaged flagstones, reseeding between the flagstones and replacing benches, trash cans, planter boxes, bollards and lighting fixtures.

Most of the discussion at Thursday's meeting concerned the plans for changing the intersection of Washington and Palace at the east end of the Plaza. Left-hand turns onto Washington for vehicles leaving the Plaza have been banned since June 2002 when a pedestrian was killed by a motorist making such a turn.

"I think it's great if you ... take away the construction barricades," said Fred Libby, owner of the Plaza Bakery, 56 E. San Francisco St. He also suggested installing removable bollards at the west end of the Plaza on San Francisco Street so the "ugly" temporary barriers won't have to be used when it shut down for Plaza events.

Libby also proposed replacing the Plaza's "interstate highway type light fixtures" with antique replicas like those near La Fonda and the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Earl Potter, a part owner of the Five & Dime General Store, 58 E. San Francisco St., said the construction barriers and orange barriers used now at the Palace-Washington corner "just pull the whole area down."

Marianne Kapoun, who with her husband, Bob Kapoun, run the Rainbow Man, 102 E. Palace Ave., took issue with Rivera's contention that the left-hand turn won't hurt safety because traffic is moving through the Palace-Washington intersection at an average speed of 10 to 15 mph.

"They move along in front of our store much faster than that, and they run that stop sign all the time," she said. "That corner is a mess. People don't know where to cross. You've got a crosswalk coming from one corner and then with these barriers, they kind of wander through there."

Patricia Hodapp, director of library services for the city, said the intersection, which is on her way to work at the Main Library, is a bottleneck. Motorists approaching the Plaza from the east on Palace Avenue "try to get over in the left-hand lane, and then they realize they can't go straight and then they try to get around it and turn up Washington," she said. "Washington is bad enough already with everything being stopped in the center of the street with all the food deliveries."

Mayor David Coss said Thursday's meeting with merchants was suggested by the Chamber of Commerce. He said he would schedule another meeting soon to discuss Police and Fire Department plans for bicycle patrols from the downtown area to the Santa Fe Railyard this summer.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.