The vacant Lazarus Building, on Middlebury's Main Street, is coming down. The former department store building is being razed as part of the effort to build a new town hall and recreation facility. The demolition process is scheduled to begin on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 19, and last two or three days. Town officials hope the holiday will mean less downtown traffic to contend with as the project gets underway.
Taking the Lazarus building down will allow the town to widen Printer's Alley for two-way traffic, and eventually construct a sidewalk, improving access to the riverfront and Marble Works area west of Main Street. However, the foundation of the Lazarus building needs to be kept in place until the nearby railroad bridge is replaced by a tunnel, later in 2015. That's because the building foundation is supporting Printer's Alley, a sidewalk on Main Street and the railroad overpass.
So until the railroad bridge is replaced, Middlebury will put the old foundation to use as a temporary "pop-up pocket park."
Minutes from a December 9 special select board meetingin Middlebury state, "The Town is collaborating with students at the University of Vermont in early January in a design-build exercise to create this pop-up park concept. The intent is to facilitate an interim use for the space currently occupied by the Lazarus Building in the form of a public open space setting. Students will use raw materials to create seating, planting space and interpretive materials to explain the rail project and its history. Once the railroad project commences, the pop-up park will transition to a staging area for construction activities."
After the railroad bridge construction is complete, Middlebury will use transportation enhancement grant funds to build a sidewalk from Main Street to Riverfront Park and Marble Works. Meeting minutes state, "Allowing for construction of the railroad bridges, it is anticipated that pedestrian amenities and improvements to the alignment of Printers Alley are at least two years away from the start of the railroad tunnel project."
