Peterborough’s newest parking lot is scheduled to be completed by Oct. 1, though the footbridge connecting it to Depot Square won’t be ready until the end of November.
Town Administrator Rodney Bartlett said Monday the Riverwalk parking lot will be complete through the base coat of pavement in time for the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce’s annual Peak Into Peterborough on Oct. 13 – an event that typically brings a lot of traffic and need for parking in the downtown area.
“The parking lot will be open, but the bridge into Depot Park will not be completed,” Bartlett said. “We hoped for early October, but with all the construction work over the summer, it will be a mid-November delivery and hopefully operational by the end of November.”
The 57-space parking lot is currently being constructed on Grove Street behind the G.A.R. Hall, the current home of Post and Beam Brewing.
The Peterborough Select Board plan to hold a public hearing at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 18, in the Town House to consider making Riverwalk a 24-hour lot and to reduce the Wall Street parking lot time restriction from 24 hours to four. The Wall Street lot is next to the Peterborough Community Theatre and across the street from the Peterborough Diner.
Bartlett said the proposed change to the Wall Street lot is to allow more parking for customers downtown.
“The 57 spaces – our best guess at this point – is most of it will be used by employees that work downtown and in Depot Square,” Bartlett said.
The town is also working to have a free, 72-hour parking permit for the Riverwalk parking lot, Bartlett said.
Bartlett said the site has been graded and several small retaining walls currently being built.
“At that point they will be ready for pavement,” Bartlett said. “To be ready for Peak Into Peterborough, they need to be ready for pavement pretty soon.”
The footbridge will be placed on top existing stone piers in the Nubanusit Brook. The piers once were used for railroad tracks that crossed over the brook.
There will also be a sidewalk in the parking lot, connecting the lot to Grove Street so people can access businesses and other buildings downtown.
Plans called for 60 parking spaces in the lot, but Bartlett said three spots have been eliminated to allow for full-sized buses to make it in and out of the lot.
Bartlett said the town has reached out to Greyhound Bus about being included on their run on Fridays and Sundays from Brattleboro, Vermont, to Keene, to Nashua, to Boston, Massachusetts.
“We hope that will start the attractiveness of that parking lot for buses from Keene or Nashua or elsewhere, to know they have a place to park, unload and load travelers,” Bartlett said.
Nicholas Handy can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 235 or nhandy@ledgertranscript.com. He is also on Twitter @nhandyMLT.