Crews from an engineering and environmental consulting firm have barricaded a city-owned parking lot along West Elm Street in downtown Graham in order to complete the preliminary work in preparation for building a new city park.
The city council’s majority voted 3-2 at a special meeting on February 17 to hire an engineering and architectural firm in Raleigh, Stewart, to develop a conceptual design for a new park at 129 West Elm Street, ultimately removing Sesquicentennial Park from the northwest corner of Court Square.
The entrance into the city-owned parking lot along West Elm Street and the exit from the lot onto the 100 block of North Maple Street were barricaded throughout the day Tuesday so engineers could perform soil testing to determine whether there are any contaminants beneath the site of the future park, Graham assistant city manager Aaron Holland told The Alamance News.
The soil testing is being performed by Terracon, an engineering and consulting firm headquartered in Olathe, Kansas that also has offices in North Carolina and throughout the U.S.
The West Elm Street parking lot was last resurfaced during the 2023-24 fiscal year, for a cost of about $58,500, based on the annual budget that Graham’s city council approved in the spring of 2023.
No date has been set yet for when the city intends to permanently close the portion of the West Elm Street parking lot where the new park will be built, Graham officials told the newspaper Tuesday. The closure will result in the elimination of approximately 25 parking spaces that have a two-hour time limit.
No apparent notice to nearby businesses
Julie Harrison, who manages Roasted Coffee Depot next door to the parking lot, said city officials had given “no notice whatsoever” that the parking lot would be barricaded this week. No one from the city has contacted the owners of Roasted Coffee Depot at any point during the discussions about converting the parking lot into a new city park, she said.
Both the one-way entrance into the parking lot from West Elm Street and the one-way exit onto North Maple Street were barricaded when her father, Jerry Harrison, who owns the coffee shop, arrived at work at 7:00 a.m. Tuesday, Julie Harrison told the newspaper later that morning.
Meanwhile, Roasted Coffee Depot cut its hours of operation by half, closing at 12:00 Noon instead of the usual 3:00 p.m., for the remainder of the week Friday, though a note posted on the coffee shop’s front door attributed the early closure to “spring break week.”
Holland initially told the newspaper Tuesday that the parking lot would reopen later that afternoon, but it remained barricaded throughout all of Wednesday.
The assistant city manager said in a subsequent interview late Wednesday afternoon that Terracon has asked the city to leave the barricades up until its work is complete.
The parking lot will be closed today for site boring to determine whether anything is buried beneath the asphalt, Holland told the newspaper. The engineers from Terracon have not given any time frame for how long the parking lot will need to be closed today, he said.
“They are trying to get it done as quickly as it can so they can be done earlier [today],” Holland told the newspaper Wednesday afternoon. “For them not to have to wait for us to put the barricades out, it will allow for them to be more efficient. If there are things they are hitting [beneath the asphalt], it will have to be closed until they’re done.”
Holland said he hasn’t received any complaints about the parking lot being closed, and the public works director, Burke Robertson, “hasn’t made it known” whether he has received any complaints.
While the city may not have gotten complaints, dozens of critical messages have been posted on Facebook since the parking lot was closed on Tuesday.
The West Elm Street parking lot will reopen once the boring is complete and will remain open until construction on the park actually begins, Holland said Wednesday afternoon.
New park targeted for completion by June 30
Graham city officials issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) last Thursday for “design build services” for what is currently called “Elm Street Park,” based on the concept design that Stewart has developed.
A public bid opening for proposals from design-build firms is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. at city hall next Tuesday, April 14.
June 30, 2026 is targeted for substantial completion of the construction of Elm Street Park, based on the RFP that the city issued last Thursday, April 2.
Graham’s Historic Resources Commission (HRC) voted unanimously, 5-0, at a special meeting on March 24 to approve a Certificate of Appropriateness to allow the new park to be built on the parking lot at 129 West Elm Street.
While state law provides a 30-day window to appeal the HRC’s decision, Holland said the city opted to move forward with the soil testing, regardless of when construction starts.
“We were needing the soil testing, regardless,” the assistant city manager said. “That was going to have to happen, whether we did something tomorrow or next year…Any appeal would stop construction.”
That process will be completed through the “design-build bridging process.”
In short, Stewart completed the concept design (35 percent of the overall design) under the contract that the council voted 3-2 to award on February 17. The remaining 65 percent of the “design-build” phase and construction will be completed by a “design-build” firm, in keeping with a state law that governs the “design-build bridging” construction delivery method.
The contract with Terracon didn’t require approval by the city council because a state law (the “Mini-Brooks Acts”) requires contracts for architectural, engineering, and surveying services to be awarded on the basis of qualifications, rather than cost, Holland told the newspaper Tuesday.
City exploring options for two-way access in and out of parking lot once park opens
City officials are currently looking into whether the exit point onto North Maple Street can be reconfigured for two-way traffic to access parking spaces that are situated behind the coffee shop, the city’s historical museum, bail bondsman’s office, a Chinese restaurant, and a bar at 101 North Maple Street.
“[We’re looking at how to possibly come in off Maple and then exit out using that little drive aisle beside the parking lot,” Holland said. “We found old deed references where the city maintains that alleyway; that’s what we’re looking at. If not, we’re looking at how that parking lot can be configured as an in and out point.”
Meanwhile, a neon green dumpster located at a corner of the parking lot will be removed before the new park opens, Holland said. A sign had been posted on the dumpster for years, stating that it was reserved for the Verdict on the Square and Court Square Florist, both tenants of properties owned by former Graham mayor Jennifer Talley and her husband, Chuck Talley, through their company Court Square Development.
Holland said he isn’t aware of any written agreement between the city and the Talleys and/or their two tenants.
“I’m not saying it doesn’t exist – I’ve just never seen anything,” the assistant city manager said. “That whole arrangement was [made] before I ever came to Graham. I want to say Ray Fogleman was the [city] manager during all of that. I don’t know how that happened. It predated myself [and definitely the former city managers Chris Rollins and Frankie Maness].”
Holland said he’s unaware of any other locations in Graham where private businesses have been allowed to place dumpsters on city-owned property.
