The City Council decided not to vote on a measure to add the Woodlawn Avenue Parking Deck to the 2011 Capital Improvement budget Tuesday night citing a lack of time to review the proposal.
Mayor Scott Johnson withdrew the discussion and vote from his agenda. “I want to give people more time to absorb it and vote Dec. 6,” he said.
Johnson said adding it to the 2011 Capital Budget is necessary because "the process is unfolding and the bids are coming in. The goal here is to not interfere with a tight timeline.”
A public hearing was held on the parking deck, which will be located on the city-owned Woodlawn Avenue parking lot. It will start as a single additional floor of parking above the ground floor but will be designed to accommodate a third level.
Requests for bids for the design/build project were put out Nov. 16 and are due to be opened Monday. The projected timeline has the parking deck being open before racing season.
The decision to put off the vote to Tuesday came a week after a meeting of potential bidders on the project complained about too little time to work on the project and only moments before a series of people speaking at the public hearing on the topic said the overall timeline is too rushed.
“The rush this is being put under has a lot of implications,” said Pat Kane, who said it could be inadequately planned out. He said it is a “winner of an idea,” but that it was on too accelerated a timeline. “August will be August with or without this parking deck.”
Public Safety Commissioner-Elect Christian Mathiesen echoed Kane’s concerns. He said it would not be his first priority and would like to see a more mixed-use proposal, though he admitted parking is an issue that needs to be addressed.
Both men said construction should be delayed until September. “I think it will have less of an impact on our tourist season,” he said. Mathiesen said he is concerned about the potential for the project to be delayed into racing season. “Take time for the design process,” he said.
Others in the audience at the public hearing had an alternative opinion.
“If you look back in the Chambers’ file on parking decks, this has been talked about for 30 years,” said President of the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce Todd Shimkus. “I think it has been delayed enough.”
He said getting the lot complete to be used during racing season “makes the most sense.”
Bids will be opened in the City Council Chambers Monday, Dec. 5, a deadline that was extended to allow designers an additional weekend to work on the project.