Downtown Erie street reopens to cars as renovation nearly finished
Gannon University President Walter Iwanenko said tours given to prospective students and their families don't end with the library, academic buildings and student housing.
Many of those tours, he said, include a visit to the Flagship City Food Hall and other projects of the Erie Downtown Development Corp.
Those tours and the university's connection to a growing list of EDDC projects will be a little easier starting Friday with the removal of road-closed signs that have shut off West Fifth Street traffic between State Street and Peach Street since 2021.
A ribbon-cutting was held Friday morning to mark the reopening, though the street wasn't expected to be open to traffic until later in the day, said Corey Cook, director of operations and logistics for the EDDC.
Road reopens just in time for car show
Drew Whiting, CEO of the EDDC, said the opening of the street, which he called one of the busiest in downtown Erie, comes just a couple hours ahead of the start of a downtown car show Friday from 6 to 10 p.m.
Whiting, who expects to announce a new tenant for the Flagship City Public Market within a few weeks, said the reopened street should also be a significant benefit to the market, which essentially had no Fifth Street access from the time the store opened in March 2022.
Lack of easy access was a big reason the market's original tenant closed in January, he said.
Iwanenko said that taking down the road-closed signs and the completion of another round of EDDC projects is a big deal for the neighborhood.
"It's a huge win," he said. "We see them as an extension of the campus."
A neighborhood transformed
Friday's ribbon-cutting marked more than the end of a traffic nuisance.
It marked, at least symbolically, the reinvention of a city block that had been dominated by a McDonald's restaurant that was purchased and razed by the EDDC in 2019. A year later, the EDDC purchased from Gannon an 84-space parking lot that had been located along Peach Street behind the McDonald's.
After more than three years under construction, the transformation of that space is nearly complete.
Ascend Climbing Gym, on State Street, opened in November. The parking garage opened recently while four floors of one- and two-bedroom apartments along West Fifth and Peach streets are now available. Cook said leases already have been signed for 11 of the 32 apartments and that he expects the rest will rent quickly.
'What more can you ask?'
Pete Zaphiris, an Erie developer and the managing partner of Great Lakes Insurance Services, which insures the apartment building, extolled its virtues, especially the apartments with views of West Fifth and of Lake Erie from Peach Street.
"You get sunrises and you get sunsets," he said. "What more can you ask?"
More: New leader of Erie Downtown Development Corp. 'There is a lot more work to do'
Tenants of EDDC apartments, 76 of which are rented, can look forward to new amenities in their neighborhood. Whiting said work should begin soon to prepare the first floor of the apartment building for Dave's Diner, which had been located on the North Park Row until EDDC renovations forced it to close.
Despite all the changes that have come, Tim NeCastro, CEO of Erie Insurance and president of the EDDC board, said Friday that there's more to come.
More: Dave's Diner on Erie's North Park Row closed until 2023; Coconut Joe's to follow Saturday
Work is expected to begin soon on the Flagship Commons, a $15 million to $20 million new building located between North Park Row and West Fifth Street in the space once occupied by Coconut Joe's.
Whiting said the building, a mixture of office and commercial space, will include common space and a glass-covered walkway that connects the two streets.
Contact Jim Martin at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Street reopens with EDDC project almost done
