WINONA LAKE –  Winona Lake Plan Commission approved a parking project Grace College wants to do in front of Westminster Hall.
Town Manager Craig Allebach said the town has been working with Grace College with their College and Community Collaboration (CCC) grant and other improvements at the college. Grace is working on several projects, including redoing Ninth Street at Westminster Hall.
Bill Wash, director of operations at Grace College, said right now, the plan is to take the existing space in front of Westminster and change the current layout from parallel to diagonal parking. What that means is some of the grassy area in front of Westminster will be eliminated.
“We’ll come up almost all the way to the sidewalk. That will allow us to put in a (diagonal) parking plan,” he said.
Wash said Ninth Street won’t be infringed at all. The street will remain the same width.
Wash also brought up the idea of getting rid of the median on Ninth Street between Westminster Hall and the former site of the Winona Lake Free Methodist Church.
Wash said the median was not part of the original bid for the project, but knew the town was repaving Ninth Street and Grace thought they could make that part of the street repavement project. He thinks it’ll make traffic a little bit easier in that part of town.
Wash believes Grace is still in the design phase of work on the church side of Ninth Street, so it will not be done in the short term. The parking on the church side of the street will be parallel parking for the next year or two.
Allebach said he believed Ninth Street was part of a milling plan the town has.
He said he believes at some point, there will be diagonal parking in front of the church side of the street, so by taking out the median, it will allow for better access to both of those buildings.
Allebach said regardless of who does the paving, he thinks there needs to be a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the town and Grace for the paving. He said he’s not opposed to taking out the median but did ask Wash if the trees in the median were salvageable and could be used elsewhere in town or on campus. Wash said Grace staff have talked about possibly moving the trees if possible.
Commissioner Jill Serbousek asked how many parking spots would be added. Wash said there are currently about five parallel parking spaces and there will be about 10 diagnoal spaces on each side.
Serbousek asked if measurements were taken to make sure the road was wide enough to support both traffic and the diagnol parking. Wash said the reason part of the grassy space is being taken out is so the egress isn’t impeded upon. Taking out of the median will help in the ease of traffic in the area. Wash said Grace is planning on doing the parking project regardless of whether the median is removed.
Allebach said traffic will be a little bit tighter with the median than without it.
Commission member Barry Andrew said he doesn’t have a problem with the end result.
The one thing he was held up on was the cost of removing the island and whoever does that has the money in the budget to do it. He said he would be more comfortable if he had the cost figures and who would be responsible for it.
Wash said what he was proposing was Grace College would be responsible for removing the median and repurposing of the trees if possible with the town being responsible for repaving that area once Grace removed the median.
Commission member Bill Zimmer said he’s hung up on the aesthetics in the area and what could be lost if the median is taken away. Serbousek said she really liked the median. Wash thinks there’s enough pieces of aesthetic improvements on that side of campus and will negate the median being taken out.
Wash was asked if Grace had done any sort of initial traffic study and he didn’t think one has been done.
Serbousek said from what she heard, the median really didn’t need to come out.
Allebach said from his understanding, the removal was more of a preference and it may be too soon to make that decision. He said he’s not saying the median wouldn’t be removed, but Grace could go ahead with the other projects. The commission could then wait for Grace to come back with changes for the church side of the street and discuss it then. Whether the median is removed now or later, the town is going to have to go in and redo some things.
Wash said the reason the median removal was being brought up now was because of the milling and paving project the town was planning on doing.
Allebach suggested the median be left in place for the time being, then if Grace comes back to the commission for changes on the church side of the street and/or they see problems in the mean time, they could discuss the removal then.
Allebach also suggested an MOU for the work on the Westminster side of the street since the work is in the town’s right-of-way.
Serbousek also said she wanted a current survey of the Westminster Hall property.
The commission approved the parking project in front of Westminster Hall, doing an MOU with Grace for the project and have Grace add a current survey.
In other business, the commission:
• Approved the Lakeland Christian Academy site plan with the option of town engineer Aaron Carl meeting with school representatives about some “minor” stormwater issues.
Lakeland Christian Academy Administrator Joe Elrod said the academy’s current kindergarten through third-grade facility is on Buffalo Street. The facility is going to be moved over to the current Winona Lake property and be built there. The plan was the construction of that new facility, including stormwater connections.
• Voted for Bruce Shaffner as commission president and Serbousek as vice president.