Great job overall. I like that it is truly mixed-use... commercial (office), residential, retail, bar/restaurant, market, hotel, convention center, parkland, parking garages, with public access throughout. Very happy that the surface lots on the east side (marina side) of the pier will be developed with residential. It seems that the surface lot just to the south of the conv center is being left open for future expansion of the center/additional hotel/parking garage. Also very pleased w/inclusion of the pedestrian bridge from the bluff spans the Bayfront Parkway... that is a necessity.... and will match the one on the east side of State St. that will span the parkway from UPMC Hamot area to the planned development by Scott Enterprises (if that ever actually happens).

For reference, here is the site as it looks currently:




Erie Events unveils master plan for former GAF site

http://www.goerie.com/erie-events-un...ormer-gaf-site



ERIE, Pa. -- Retail space for restaurants and offices.

Residential units.

A new "Market House" that could offer local goods like produce, meats, chocolates and wine.

Parking, bicycle trails and plenty of parks and green space, all open to the public and overlooking Presque Isle Bay.

Those are among the features included in an ambitious waterfront development plan that includes the 12.5 acres along Erie's west bayfront that was once home to the GAF Materials Corp.

Erie Events, which owns the site, and Kidder Wachter Architecture & Design, hired to shape the development concept, gave the Erie Times-News a first look at the plan on Monday, and met with the Erie Times-News' Editorial Board on Tuesday to discuss it.

"Just about anywhere on the site, you still have a connection with the water," said Casey Wells, Erie Events' executive director. "That's all done very strategically ... I am very happy with this concept plan, which I think represents the highest and best use for this site."

Architects Jeff Kidder and Chip Wachter said the plan, which their firm has worked on for more than a year, aimed to outline the best use for the property.

Kidder and Wachter said it is a mixed-use concept that includes housing, retail, offices and green space, as well as the layout for roads, sidewalks, streetlights, underground utilities and an overhead pedestrian bridge to carry people over the Bayfront Parkway to the site from nearby Front Street.

The project, which will be explained further at a public meeting in February, also complements the nearby Bayfront Convention Center and Sheraton Erie Bayfront Hotel, the architects said, as well as the $54 million Courtyard by Marriott and parking garage project under construction in that area.

The new hotel is expected to open later this year. The concept includes plans for another parking garage to be added later.

The area, known as Bayfront Place, encompasses 29 acres when the former GAF property, Convention Center complex and the new hotel/parking garage are included.

"We tried to create this dense, urban little waterfront neighborhood on the site, but also not make it too dense," Wachter said. "We also wanted to create something that is realistic for Erie's development market. Everything that is here is compatible with (previous) market studies on what the site can support."

Kidder added: "The plan doesn't say what piece has to go first, what piece has to go second. It's going to be driven by the demand."

Officials connected to the plan said that it involves building 790,000 square feet of new buildings, and the total construction cost -- a developer would be chosen later -- could be as high as $300 million.

The project is likely to be built in stages, and could spawn as many as 1,950 short-term and long-term jobs, including construction work, officials said.

In addition, the development is expected to generate $7 million to $10 million annually in property taxes, collectively, for the city of Erie, the Erie School District and Erie County government once it is fully developed, officials said.

Roger Richards, a member of the Erie Events board of directors and chairman of its Strategic Planning Committee, said that the concept plan is "fluid" and subject to change depending on what individual developers might want.

The authority oversees Erie Events.

"Everything can be renegotiated," Richards said.

Several buildings in the plan would include retail space at ground level, with residences such as apartments or condominiums on the upper floors.

The Market House would be located at the south side of the development, near the Bayfront Parkway and Sassafras Street, adjacent to new office buildings.

All of the new buildings are organized around a network of parks and landscaped open space throughout the site, including a 1-acre "great lawn" at the site's northwest edge, along Presque Isle Bay and adjacent to the Courtyard by Marriott.

Kidder, Wachter and Jacqueline Spry, the architectural firm's planner and project manager, said they also studied waterfront developments in Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia and Rapid City, S.D., among other places, for ideas.

"You have to do your research, and understand what has worked elsewhere and what might work here," Kidder said.

Spry added the architectural firm "wanted to have a dense development, but not have it be too dense and not have it be an 'Erie development.'"

That is why more than 40 percent of the development is open, public space, she said.

Sinnott said he likes the plan.

"The concepts are something we can sell to a developer," Sinnott said.

GAF closed its asphalt shingle plant in 2007 and demolished it in 2010. After lengthy negotiations with GAF, Erie Events, formerly known as the Erie County Convention Center Authority, purchased the property for $3 million in December 2010.

Kidder and Wachter's concept plan follows a two-year, $7 million environmental cleanup at the site by London-based Amec, an engineering and project management firm. The work was funded by a state grant. The cleanup began in June 2012 and was finished in June 2014.

The property cleanup was structured to meet the highest standards of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Act 2 program, which governs environmental cleanup of former industrial sites.

An Act 2 cleanup allows the authority and potential developers to consider a wide range of uses for the property.

State funding was also used to handle infrastructure work like roads, some utilities and stormwater-management system.

Richards said that helps make the site more enticing to a developer or developers, who would not have to factor infrastructure into their own project costs.