Finding A Parking Space At Fairfield Hills

By Kendra Bobowick

The lay of the land is changing.

Flagpoles are down, and the flags secured to make room for the “rework going on around that green,” at Fairfield Hills, said Public Works Director Fred Hurley. Last week crews unearthed the poles and cement bases of two flagpoles standing guard along a greenway between Woodbury and Newtown Halls and Shelton House.

Don’t worry, he said, “They will be repositioned.” Where will the flags go? The Fairfield Hills Authority members will make that decision, he explained. Authority Chairman Robert Geckle said, “Currently, we think they will go where Shelton House is after it comes down.” Until that work is completed or the flags are replaced elsewhere, they may be stored “for a while,” he said.

Work should be completed by the end of the summer Mr Hurley explained.

Ongoing redevelopment work within the sprawling campus includes plans to install permanent parking in areas serving the front and back of the former state hospital grounds. Mr Geckle refers to parking Zone A and Zone B. Zone A, where the flags have come out, will supply parking for Newtown and Woodbury Halls. Stratford Hall and the duplexes require a smaller portion of parking grouped into Zone A.

The authority is responsible for the roughly $200,000 job (not including the duplex portion) of providing parking for buildings either currently under lease or awaiting tenants. Work includes construction, site work, drainage, paving, and lighting.

While Mr Hurley’s crews are on the job for the construction, Mr Geckle believes that either the town or a third party will complete paving. Funds for the work will come from the original bonding of roughly $21 million. The Planning and Zoning Commission approve all the parking plans.

Once Shelton Hall demolition is complete, a broad greenway will lead right up to Bridgeport Hall — soon to be the new town hall. Work has already begun to revamp the cavernous spaces within that building to offer an office setting for town and education departments. Municipal offices will relocate from the Edmond Town Hall on Main Street and education will move in from the Kendro building on Peck’s Lane. Both Mr Hurley and Mr Geckle look forward to a broad green space leading from the front of the campus toward the new town hall located at Bridgeport Hall.

Also reshaping Fairfield Hills is the decision to work with private developer Peter D’Amico, who will raze Greenwich House and complete permanent parking in what Mr Geckle refers to as Zone B, which will serve Mr D’Amico’s Newtown Youth Academy — now under construction — an eventual community/senior center, a new 90-foot baseball diamond, and Bridgeport Hall, which is being renovated to house municipal and education department offices.

As the summer progresses residents will see changes to Fairfield Hills landscape, and finding a place to park should be simpler than maneuvering through what are now individual parking areas surrounding each building. In fact, Mr Geckle stated again what he has stressed in that past: “When we get [parking] in, there will be less impervious surfaces than what is there now.”