City officials have debated for years whether to build a new road connecting Fourteenth Street to Eighth Street around the curve of Boardman Lake. Now they may have the ammunition they need to move the project forward.

Consulting firm LSL Planning unveiled a preferred design scenario for the West Boardman Lake District at a city commission study session Monday night. Hired by the city with brownfield funding in 2015 to study the area from Eighth Street to Fourteenth Street and Cass Street to the Boardman Lake/River, LSL Planning spent the past year meeting with neighborhood residents, businesses and local leaders on a desired growth plan for the area.

“We were tasked with the goal of not just looking at the traffic and the potential of having a new street or no street, but also looking at the development opportunities (in the neighborhood),” explained Project Planner Michelle Foster of LSL Planning.

A range of alternatives was explored in the study, covering options from constructing a high-speed bypass from Fourteenth to Eighth to not building a street at all. A combination of traffic-calming measures, new land use opportunities and neighborhood improvements were also considered as part of each scenario.

While a bypass was ruled out early in the process as too destructive to the neighborhood's character, the final design chosen by stakeholders and unveiled Monday supports constructing a new street. Originally nicknamed Boardman Lake Avenue, now referred to as South Boardman Street, the proposed road would extend from Fourteenth to Eighth following the curve of the railroad tracks around Boardman Lake. Residents and business owners supported designing the road as a neighborhood-friendly, multi-use street with stop signs at Tenth and Twelfth streets and a signalized intersection at Eighth Street. Tenth Street would be extended past Oryana to meet up with the new road, which would provide connections to a reconfigured TART Trail and improved access to the lake and river.

The design also calls for converting Lake Street into either a pedestrian-only or right-in, right-out road to avoid having side-by-side exit conflict points on Eighth Street. LSL Planning said the new South Boardman Street would allow Lake Street to be beautified and converted to provide parking, sidewalks and improved access to businesses like Oryana and McGough’s (see concept drawing above). Riverine Apartments’ driveway on Eighth Street would also be closed, with an access drive connecting to the new road instead.

Consultants said building South Boardman Street could help alleviate pressure on residential streets in the neighborhood. “There are 3,000 cars a day on Lake Avenue,” said Planning Division Manager Bradley Strader, noting that drivers use Lake and Tenth streets as a neighborhood cut-through to avoid Cass Street. “That’s way more traffic than that street was designed to accommodate. So one of the reasons to have (South Boardman Street) is to put the traffic that’s already there on a new street that’s designed for it.”

The preferred design scenario also identifies multiple sites where new housing and retail could be integrated into the neighborhood. Proposed sites include between Fourteenth Street and Twelfth Street near Cone Drive Operations, along Boardman Lake off Lake Ridge Drive, and along the proposed South Boardman Drive route. A public amphitheater gathering space and rain garden is proposed for the area where Tenth Street would meet South Boardman Drive, while new parking spaces are sketched in along the corridor behind the warehouse buildings on Lake Street, providing more spots for trail and business visitors.

LSL Planning estimates the preferred design scenario includes 6.9 acres of developable land that could support up to 189 new residential units and 5,000 square feet of retail space along the perimeter of the neighborhood. The proposed South Boardman Drive would cost between $2 and $2.7 million to build; it would also decrease daily traffic volume on Cass Street by 11 percent, the firm estimates. Relocating portions of the TART Trail to accommodate the new traffic configurations would cost $150,000-$200,000, while beautifying Lake Street would be a $1.5-$2.5 million project.

Several neighborhood residents expressed support for the plan Monday night. Thirteenth Street resident John Bramer noted several property sites have sat vacant for years in anticipation of the new street being built. “We’re in a position where we can take that and build this thing with all the work that’s been put into it,” he said. “But if we let (those properties) go into private development, we’ll never have this opportunity again.”

Old Town Neighborhood Association President Mary Burget agreed, saying the plan “provides forward-thinking infrastructure to support new development and access to recreational areas.” Oryana General Manager Steve Nance said the design has both "pros and cons, but conceptually we are in support (of it)." Nance added that Oryana has “over the years been responsible for a lot of traffic coming through the neighborhood, so we do want to see something to help.”

While commissioners offered scant feedback on the design scenario Monday, the board will review the concept further and consider the plan for official adoption after LSL Planning provides a final report in the coming weeks, complete with more detailed traffic modeling and analysis. The final West Boardman Lake District plan is expected to integrate with city planning processes already underway for reconstructing Eighth Street and completing the Boardman Lake Trail.