NORTHAMPTON — About a week after the City Council debated whether to require the mayor to appear before them to provide an extensive update on the big downtown redesign known as Picture Main Street, city officials confirmed this week that the controversial project’s cost estimate has grown to $37 million.
That’s $10 million more than the projected cost of $26.3 million two years ago.
Meanwhile, the city began working with Eversource this week to dig about 20 “test pits” to identify the precise location of gas lines that were potentially installed incorrectly, a discovery late last year that delayed the project’s start by at least six months.
Northampton Planning & Sustainability Director Carolyn Misch said this week that the cost increase is mainly due to the need to fill and repair 19 “cavities,” or vaults, underneath the downtown sidewalks.
“As part of this design process we’ve discovered there are subsurface cavities or vaults that are under the sidewalks and they are various sizes,” Misch said in a previous interview with the Gazette. “In many cases they used to be coal storage.”
The $37 million price tag is based on an evaluation from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC), which met Tuesday to assess many ongoing projects around the Valley, including Picture Main Street.
PVPC Director of Transportation Planning Gary Roux said in an email to the Gazette that the commission’s Municipal Planning Organization identified the project as a high priority. Preference was expressed for it to be included in fiscal year 2027 plans. Additional discussion is anticipated for the organization’s April 28 meeting.
Plans still call for the project to be funded fully by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), along with federal money, which is overseen by PVPC.
“For every construction project, an extra amount is built into cost estimates to allow for overruns. Those are contingencies,” Misch wrote in an email to the Gazette Thursday. “There is also an ample amount put in to cover cost of police details.”
The $37 million also covers projected cost increases due to inflation that would rise by the time of construction, Misch said. The project is planned to go out to bid by June 2027.
The project has drawn mixed opinions from the Northampton community since four design options for the project were unveiled in 2021. Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, city officials and certain residents favor the project, seeing it as a way to tackle several necessary improvements to the downtown area.
Opposition to the large-scale project has come from concerned business owners, certain elected officials and many residents, mainly those in the group known as Save Paradise City who want to see a trial run of designs before changes are permanent to assess their effectiveness at improving safety.
The plan for the project includes expanding the sidewalks, adding separate bike lanes and reducing the number and size of lanes in both directions, and eliminating multiple parking spaces.
Save Paradise City member James “Jim” Winston previously told the Gazette that he and other group members want the city to answer questions, mainly regarding the project’s funding stability and timeline.
Council spars over order
Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Stratton and Councilor At-Large Meg Robbins shared a desire for answers at the council’s March 19 meeting, which ran for more than five hours. The two councilors put forward an order to require Sciarra to provide more information about Picture Main Street to the council.
“There’s just a lot of concerns,” Robbins said at the meeting. “And it seems to me that it’s really our job to answer those questions for our constituents and to give the mayor an opportunity to be able to really be specific about what she knows.”
The order was ultimately pushed off by the council to its March 31 meeting agenda. If passed, it would have required Sciarra to appear at that meeting to answer and provide plans for eight different requests.
Councilors agreed that the more information, the merrier. But the order sparked debate toward the end of the meeting, with other councilors pushing back, saying that the order was “non-collaborative,” “heavy-handed” and had an “arm-twisty nature.”
Councilors went back and forth, debating the appropriate ways to request and share information.
“I know that a lot of residents in Northampton are quite often asking questions about it [Picture Main Street] and I think these are valid questions to raise,” said Ward 4 Councilor Jeremy Dubs. “I just really do feel like this approach to it is very non-collaborative and almost assuming in some way that the mayor is withholding information from us.”
“Councilor Dubs, you really kind of voiced how I feel about this,” said Council President Rachel Maiore. “I don’t think that kind of the arm-twisty nature of it is what we need right now.”
However, Robbins said that she contacted the mayor’s office, city finance director and planning department for that information in early February. She received a response from Sciarra’s Chief of Staff, Alan Wolf, who said the city is in the process of making an update.
“This request comes from the people who live in Northampton,” Robbins said. “People in Northampton are worried about fundamentally, what change comes in front of them.”
She continued, “I would prefer not to have come with this particular structure … but I really feel as though if we can’t get it through those other avenues, you tell me what to do.”
“I similarly have a relatively low ratio of questions that get answered when I ask them of city officials,” Stratton said.
Eversource test pits
Sciarra said that she had hoped to give the council an update on Picture Main Street earlier this year, but the city was “surprised” by information that Eversource had potentially installed gas lines underneath Main Street that did not align with city permitting.
“Some questions are easier than others and we answer questions all the time,” Sciarra said. “There has been a lot more questions with new people which totally makes sense, but there’s a difference between asking a couple questions and sort of sending a list of something that’s going to take hours,” to research.
The city is working with Eversource to dig approximately 20 “test pits” this week, to identify the precise location of the gas lines. After the lines were installed last summer, the city was notified in November by an Eversource engineer that the lines may not be in the correct location.
Sciarra said she spoke with Maiore three or four weeks ago, stating she would be happy to provide an update once information is gathered from the test pits. Maiore added that she shared that information with Robbins.
Eversource explained, “Prior to and during construction, field adjustments were required in several locations due to existing underground conditions encountered in the field,” spokesperson Olessa Stepanova wrote in an email to the Gazette about the gas lines.
Stepanova continued, saying that Eversource found unidentified traffic loops and sewer infrastructure, adding that new and existing utility conflicts are common for older infrastructure that is not always fully documented.
Stepanova said in some instances, gas-line installation was adjusted to address the conflicts and “in certain cases, at the direction of city representatives to avoid specific infrastructure.”
Misch told the Gazette that testing should take no longer than a week, weather permitting. She estimates that testing will cost no more than $50,000. It has not been officially decided where the money will come from, but Misch said it will likely come from Chapter 90 funds.
“Eversource was out on site with us yesterday [Monday] and I think today, they’re confirming locations as well,” Misch said in an interview this week. “So we won’t know for a while so they’ll analyze what was found in all the different locations and where there may be some conflicts.”
Council Vice President Deborah Klemer said pushing Sciarra’s update back to the April 16 meeting won’t make much of a difference and will give her time to organize a more thorough presentation.
At-Large Councilor Garrick Perry agreed that the council could use updates on Picture Main Street but is “uncertain” that the order from Robbins and Stratton is the right way to do that. He suggested using other methods to relay information, which the Council’s Committee on Community Resources can discuss.
Both Perry and Klemer said the request felt “heavy-handed,” noting that the request comes from new councilors who have only been in their roles for a few months. Perry, among other councilors, said they have not seen Sciarra’s administration hide information, adding that government takes time.
Sciarra said she has never refused to give information to a councilor, responding to a question from Ward 3 Councilor Laurie Loisel. The councilor also asked if Sciarra would be willing to give more frequent updates, even if there is not much new information.
“I’d be willing to do it,” Sciarra responded. “There’ll be more active times in this project where I think not only would I do it, I think this is something that I’m going to ask all of you [councilors] to do as well. We will be trying to get out a lot of information and keeping people updated.”