Can't wait to see this get completely underway. The area has so much potential.
Renewal for homeless haven
By CODY SWITZER
cody.switzer@timesnews.com
Published: November 28. 2007 6:00AM
The gazebo at Griswold Park in Erie has become a gathering place for people who are homeless, but the gazebo will soon be moved to make room for a town house development.
(LAUREN M. ANDERSON/Erie Times-News)
Brian's neighborhood is changing.
Brian, who is homeless, said he used to spend nights on the loading dock of what was the Warren Radio building in the 1300 block of Peach Street, across from Griswold Park. The dock was dark and dry, almost private and relatively warm. He could sleep.
The Warren Radio building is now demolished, replaced, temporarily, with a muddy lot.
"They actually tore my home down, such as it was," said Brian, who wouldn't give his full name.
Soon, a row of brick town houses will spring up where Brian once slept, part of a $51 million project aimed at bringing young professionals and empty-nesters into the city to live and work.
The development is to go up across the street from the Griswold Park and the park gazebo -- the spot where Brian and other homeless men now come to meet and get out of the weather.
The area is poised for gentrification and renewal.
Starting in the summer, developers will extend the one-acre park, thin its trees and install lights. The plans call for the gazebo to be gone -- and with it, most likely, the homeless who hang out there.
The Griswold Park development is proof that the center city is changing and ready for another "big nudge" toward development, said John Elliot, executive director of the Erie Redevelopment Authority, which is leading the Griswold Park project.
"We don't want to go into a vacuum and create something from nothing," Elliot said. "When we were selecting an area downtown to focus our first initiative, we wanted to build on strengths, and there are a couple of strong points in that neighborhood."
One of those points, he said, is Griswold Park.
'The park environment we want'
(Chris Sigmund / Erie Times-News)
The project -- to occur from Sassafras to State streets and between West 12th and West 14th streets -- is to create 143 new residential units, according to the plans the city and the Erie Redevelopment Authority unveiled earlier this year. Mixed-use buildings would go up throughout the area. The streets will be lined with trees.
Plans for the neighborhood around the park call for 12 to 14 town houses along Peach and West 13th streets. The park will be extended to the parking island for the post office in adjacent Griswold Plaza.
The gazebo, which was built in 2005, will be removed. "Architecturally, it does not fit with the park environment we want to have there," Elliot said.
The plan is to add gardens and a water feature, something to match the look of the post office and neighboring Union Station, Elliot said. He said the Redevelopment Authority chose the area for the project partly because of the park, which he said is meant to be an asset.
The city likely will move the gazebo to another park, said Kim Green, the city's director of economic and community development. She said the project will include more lights and the thinning of the trees, to make the area brighter and safer.
"Our hope is that we would make it a more family-oriented park, and perhaps a park where people would come out and enjoy lunch in the summer," Green said.
"I might not stay, but I come here'
Kerman Amos, of Erie, takes shelter under the gazebo at Griswold Park. Amos, who is homeless, says he visits the gazebo once a day so he can see his friends. “I might not stay, but I come here to check on everything, see if they’re all right,” he says.
(LAUREN M. ANDERSON/Erie Times-News)
A group of homeless men at the gazebo, interviewed recently, said they had heard of how the neighborhood will change.
A man dropped off leftover turkey, a few loaves of bread and some mayonnaise on the day after Thanksgiving.
Eight men ate and drank $7.19-a-liter Vladimir-brand vodka around the picnic tables.
Most wore ball caps and jackets with hooded sweatshirts underneath. They joked with each other.
"Where's K?" a few of them asked.
He wasn't there yet on this day, but he was there a week before.
K -- he said his full name is Kerman Amos -- had stood in the gazebo with his hood pulled up. He said he visits the gazebo almost once a day, to see his friends.
"I might not stay, but I come here to check on everything, see if they're all right," Amos said.
He and Brian, the homeless man who said he used to sleep on the loading dock at the Warren Radio building, had a 12-pack of Natural Ice beer. Brian said he had just gotten out of prison, and said it was his first beer in 90 days. It was 11:30 a.m.
Sometimes the men at the gazebo get drunk and out of control, Amos said, but mostly they keep to themselves. Amos said he doesn't want to bother anyone.
'A perfect clubhouse'
Jim Berlin, chief executive of Logistics Plus in Union Station, said he understands why the park is a draw for the homeless.
"The park was made nicer, so it's kind of becoming more accommodating for people just hanging out," he said. "There's the gazebo and electricity and the port-o-potties. It's a perfect clubhouse, you know?"
In September, Berlin asked readers of his blog for suggestions for how to deal with some men in the park who he said dug through trash cans, urinated on Union Station and attempted to break into employees' cars.
Erie police pay extra attention to the park, but calls only come in occasionally in the summer, police spokesman Lt. Kirk Werner said.
Doug Mitchell, director of public works for the city, said that he has heard the occasional complaint about the park, and he said the city is concerned when people don't feel comfortable using the park.
The city pays for electrical service to the park, with an outlet near the gazebo. Mitchell said he had no usage statistics for the outlet.
The homeless men said they have occasionally plugged appliances into the outlet -- one said the men have cut their hair with electric trimmers. But they said they leave the outlet alone most of the time.
Chris Sirianni, president of BrewErie, the restaurant in Union Station, said that his customers have sometimes complained about the homeless.
"I wouldn't say they are harassing. It's just guys getting loud from drinking all day," Sirianni said.
The construction is expected to prompt the homeless men to leave.
"If other people come in, it would be less secluded, less out of the way," Berlin said. "It becomes more central, more part of downtown and in the spotlight. These guys don't like the spotlight."
"It may be self-correcting, in a way," Elliot said.
'We wouldn't stay here'
Amos said he will move on when the project starts.
"If there were houses around here, we wouldn't stay here," Amos said.
There are other places to go in the city -- another park or somewhere else where Amos and his group know people.
Help from local shelters is also available, said Paul Bratt, a resident and intern at Erie City Mission. But he said not everyone chooses to enter a program, and some homeless only sleep at shelters at night.
"A lot of them really don't want to quit their activities," Bratt said. "So most likely they'll hang out at McDonald's or Burger King during the day and then come here at night or wherever they go. There are a lot of centers."
Amos, who said he had to leave the City Mission center, knows the situation at the shelters. The shelter staff will help you, he said, if you follow the rules.
Amos said he didn't.
"You make that choice," he said.
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... they are creating more density in that area and their location in the very "front" of the city will allow the buildings to be nice additions to the skyline when viewed from across the bay, even though they are rather short.
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