By Susan Motander, special for the Monrovia Weekly
Monrovia has undertaken its largest municipal works project in developing the area around the old Santa Fe Depot and the new Gold Line Station near the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Duarte Road. The City Council has awarded the first two contracts for work on Station Square: the first at the September 2 meeting, the second just last Tuesday. The work has been divided into two categories: on-site and off-site.
Carl Hassel, the Director of Public Works and Lauren Vasquez, a Senior Project Analyst in the City Manager’s Office recently explained the improvements being planned. At the Station Square itself (the on-site portion of the project), there will be the Transit Plaza itself at the south end of Primrose Avenue, just north of the Gold Line Station. This is the bus transfer stop at the Plaza. Just west of the plaza the Gold Line is building a 350 space parking structure.
There will be a neighborhood park at the east end of the square adjacent to Myrtle Avenue. The park will feature a stage for community functions, a children’s play area with rustic logs for climbing and a picnic area.
Connecting the park and the plaza will be a promenade with a water feature running through the middle. The paving in this area will be constructed of water permeable concrete according to Hassel. This will allow rainwater to return to the aquifer rather than running off into the storm drain system. The promenade will run just north of the old historic Santa Fe Depot.
An additional pathway will run long north side of the Gold Line tracks from Magnolia Avenue to Myrtle Avenue. This pathway will feature native plants and give historical information about the traditional use of these plants. This area will also act as a bioswale, again allow rainwater to return to the aquifer.
The Gold Line Construction Authority is making some improvements in the area as well. The GLCA will be putting up fencing along the tracks to prevent pedestrians from wandering onto the tracks according to Vasquez. She and Hassan explained that the construction authority was also responsible for the barriers where the Gold Line crosses city streets at grade. In Monrovia, these include the crossings at Mayflower, Magnolia, Myrtle, California and Mountain Avenues.
The off-site improvements include repaving and reconstructing several of the roadways around and near the Gold Line Station and the Station Square Development. Reconstructing a roadway differs from merely repaving according Hassel, in that the old roadway is completely removed down to the dirt and then completely rebuilt. Repaving is merely as the name implies, paving over the existing surface after it has been reworked to accept the new surface.
Myrtle Avenue from the 210 Freeway south to Duarte Road will be reconstructed as will Duarte Road from Magnolia to California Avenues. Evergreen will be repaved from Magnolia on the west to the eastbound freeway onramp just east of Myrtle Avenue. Magnolia from the freeway south the Duarte Road will also be repaved. Pomona will also be repaved from Magnolia to Primrose in front of the new apartment complex, The Parks, the construction of which was recently approved by the city council. Please look for further information on this project in next week’s paper.
In addition many of the sidewalks in the area will be repaved and in some cases expanded. At the end of the freeway off-ramp from the east bound 210 Freeway to Myrtle Avenue, there will be a large Monrovia sign. The plan also calls for what the Public Works director calls “street furniture” which is “Civil Engineer Speak” for bus stop benches and trash cans. There will be new landscaping along the roadsides and on medians being added to Myrtle and Duarte Roads.
There will be a fence in the center of the median on Duarte Road. The fence will discourage students from Santa Fe Middle School from jaywalking across Duarte Road in front of the school. New traffic signals will be added at the corners of Pomona and Myrtle, and Peck Road and Duarte Road. This second signal will give students an additional safe way to cross Duarte Road.
One other traffic change is being implemented: vehicles turning off Genoa onto Magnolia are already being restricted to turning right only (southbound toward Duarte Road). Those turning off Pomona onto Magnolia will soon be restricted to right turns only (in this case, northbound onto Magnolia toward the 210 Freeway).
All this leaves one question remaining. What will be done with the historic Santa Fe Depot building itself? According to Vasquez, the city has not yet made definitive plans for the depot. “We needed to determine to the cost of the other work being done to determine how much money would be available for work on the depot”, she said. Both she and Hassel claimed that since the contracts for the first part of the work at Station Square have been awarded, the city will be able to begin making decisions about the depot including what needs to be done to the station, how and for what use it can be put.
Neighborhood Park Sketch:
This is an artist’s conception of the neighborhood park being built as a part of the Station Square Complex. At the far right is the park’s stage, at the center top, the play area with the picnic area at the center bottom. Along the left hand edge of the sketch is the promenade area with the water feature running through the center of the walk.
Page 4 of 7 of INFORMATION boards:
This diagram shops the relative positions of the various components of the Station Square Complex. Just north of the Parking Structure, the Samuelson/Fetter Company is building the apartment complex, The Parks. As a part of the complex, just north of the tracks from Magnolia there will also be a path with historic native plantings and interpretive signs.
Source Beacon Media News