Changes set for two Germantown streets
For eight years, Germantown leaders have nurtured a plan to realign two main streets — Germantown Road and West Street — using one to whisk throughtraffic out and the other as a more leisurely access to shopping and restaurants.
“We have two state highways that bisect the city (Poplar and Germantown Road), said City Administrator Patrick Lawton. “They carry a lot of traffic. We need to look out for the pedestrians in our community if we want to be a walkable community.”
Residents will get their first chance to ask questions and hear the rationale in a public hearing at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Council Chambers.
The plan is to extend Germantown Road to West Street, north of the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks. West, in turn, would extend to the east, angling to an intersection at what is now North Street.
North would be demolished, along with a handful of businesses, including Triumph Bank, 7540 North St. and six shops in the strip mall Alex Jekels has owned 40 years.
“It’s absolutely bad for all the businesses there, no matter what the mayor says. I don’t understand why they are doing it except that they got the funding,” Jekels said.
He says the combination of train traffic and a new stoplight at the intersection will back up traffic down both streets.
“Retail and congestion don’t work,” Jekels says. He also says his tenants, who have invested in their businesses, will not be able to find space as affordable as his. “This is a real problem for real people who don’t have money to move around.”
If approved, construction would start in 2016 and last more than a year.
The city requested funding through the Memphis Metropolitan Planning Organization. The project ranked high enough in the current cycle and was funded. Because much of the improvement involves State Route 177 (Germantown Road), the state Department of Transportation agreed to cover 10 percent, which means Germantown will be reimbursed for 90 percent of the cost.
“Our community has a very long, rich tradition of being as fiscally responsible as possible,” Mayor Mike Palazzolo said. “If a project has been identified as a priority, and funding sources open up, we take advantage of that.”
But it is incorrect, he said, to say the funding is driving the timing.
“This was identified two budget cycles ago. This is just another step forward.”
Palazzolo, who lives in the area, met with about 20 stakeholders, including residents, on Thursday.
“I got very good feedback. When you meet with stakeholders, you get a broader view of what it could be,” he said.
He said there were concerns about the city’s plan to take private property through eminent domain.
“Of course, it has to be done in a fair and equitable way,” Palazzolo said. He also noted that Germantown city leaders would be make a “real effort” to identify vacant commercial property that could be used by displaced tenants.
The conversation was enough to ease worries for Walker Taylor, who owns Germantown Commissary.
“My concerns were addressed satisfactorily. Mainly, our stretch will be called Old Germantown Road and not West,” he said, which spares him expense of changing the restaurant’s address.
“It’s not just stationery and business cards, it’s all the social media sites. And all our suppliers.”
But he can’t help but worry that he’ll lose business during road construction.
“It’s going to be disruptive. ... You change people’s habits, and they don’t always come back. People say, ‘You’re a destination.’ But you know what? Destinations change.”
Boyd Maize, 91, who served as a Germantown alderman through 1980, is watching with quiet alarm. “I am very much opposed to the project,” he said.
In the 1970s, he says, aldermen extended West to Farmington to bypass Germantown Road in the old part of the city. They also eliminated the cross streets so the traffic couldn’t migrate back to Germantown Road.
The solution, he says, is to build an underpass beneath Norfolk Southern’s track and close the stretch of North that still feeds into Germantown Road.