Merchants meet with ODOT on Cascade project

Downtown merchants let Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) officials know on Friday just how concerned they are about the impact of the Cascade Avenue renovation project, set for 2014. And they may be moving toward finding options that protect them as the project moves forward.

A meeting was held at Sisters Fire Hall to air merchants' concerns over ODOT's announced schedule that would shut Cascade Avenue down completely from January 2, 2014 to May 30, 2014. At the close of the nearly three-hour meeting, Cascade Avenue merchant and meeting chair Chris Wilder said, "I get the feeling that we are relatively close to agreement." Wilder and wife Jill own and operate two Sisters Log Furniture stores on Cascade Avenue.

The meeting actually didn't come to any firm conclusions; it was not intended to.

"This is a listening session, to give you an opportunity to share your concerns and to make sure that the city and ODOT have heard correctly what the concerns are," said City Manager Eileen Stein. "From what we hear this morning we will prepare and respond to at a community meeting on October 17, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Sisters City Hall."

The atmosphere was charged but respectful, with participants expressing strong and often-divergent opinions. A number of the merchants stated their criticism of the city staff, city council and the chamber of commerce for what they perceive as a failure to hear their voices.

Many merchants expressed their fears about the ability of their businesses to withstand the impact of this road project. At the same time, there appeared to be a general consensus that the project needs to be done. There was a strong sense that communication was finally happening that should have happened months or years before.

Bob Bryant, director of ODOT Region 4, said repeatedly that ODOT thought that they had heard the voice of the merchants through a number of outreach meetings the city had sponsored since the project's inception back in 2003, and more recently from one-on-one and small group meetings with selected merchants.

Speaking to Bryant's observation, Roy Slicker of Slick's Que Co. said, "You keep coming back to the original (merchant's) group that decided, and that you have been through all this before. Is it safe to say that this is a much larger group (now) that represents downtown Sisters? I would like to say that what happened in the past stays in the past."

Melissa Ward, owner of Sisters Bakery since 1995, expressed a theme that was heard from many of the merchants: "In the earlier meetings ... I felt (we) were heavily guided ... I felt shut down ... that's one reason you didn't get my voice. I very much appreciate the atmosphere in this meeting. I agree the road needs to be fixed. I just want to see some signs that there will be a partial closure, not a full closure. A full closure will kill (my) business."

Wilder, one of the few merchants who attended most if not all of the city meetings said, "I felt that in those meeting we were given the options to pick between the trees and benches and landscape features we wanted, but the feasibility of the project itself was not open to discussion."

Bryant indicated the willingness of ODOT to make significant changes to the project's content and construction scheduling. But he also stressed that to stay on schedule, the window to make such changes was closing rapidly.

The major decisions will be driven by the construction schedule that ODOT and the merchants come to agreement on. The staging of the project is the key factor.

Until this August, ODOT understood that the merchants favored a "get-in-and-get-out" approach. ODOT scheduled a complete shut-down of Cascade Avenue for five months, beginning January 2 and ending the day before Memorial Day weekend 2014.

The announcement of this schedule caused consternation that surfaced in August when business owners John and Kathryn Leavitt circulated an information-gathering petition aimed at organizing support for a movement protesting ODOT's plan.

Major decisions like constructing an asphalt roadbed or a concrete roadbed are in the balance. As Bryant explained, construction of an asphalt roadbed would be quicker and easier to queue up in block-by-block or lane-by-lane construction, but the work can't be done at temperatures below 40 degrees, most likely pushing the work past Memorial Day.

Concrete construction can be done in winter, but would require larger sections of the roadbed to be shut down for longer periods.

ODOT's proposed schedule is based on working five days a week, eight hours a day. The idea of working only at night with the street open during the days was discussed. Some put forward the concept of working 24/7 to "blow through" the work and get it done quickly during the winter months.

One remaining concern that surfaced several times was the impact of the plethora of trees and benches on the character and 'charm' of Sisters, and the impact on the 1880s Western theme.

While the meeting produced no definitive answers, there was a sense of progress toward consensus on how to get the project done without killing the downtown core.