Large Turnout To View Potential Downtown Plans

Between 40 and 50 people braved bitter wind chills and filled the training room of the Public Safety Building Thursday night to view conceptual plans for the future Sussex downtown.

"I'm impressed," said Kathryn Wegner, executive director of the Sussex Area Chamber of Commerce. "It's obvious that a lot of time and effort and thought have gone into these ideas."

But she also expressed concern over the concept of turning Silver Spring to the southwest away from where it now forms a triangular intersection with Main Street, and having it run behind where the Piggly Wiggly store is now, and bringing it back to the north to create a new, standard four-way intersection at the driveway to the Village Hall and library.

"I think that would create an east-west shortcut on Sunset Drive and increase traffic on that residential street," Wegner said.

Phil Juopperi, however, said he liked the proposal for a standard 90-degree intersection of Silver Spring with what is being called the "civic campus."

"The triangle intersection is kind of hazardous and making left turns (in the area of Village Halls and the Piggly Wiggly) on Main Street can be dangerous," he said.

His wife, Annette, agreed: "It's confusing where and how to cross the street the way traffic is now."

Rick Vodicka was concerned over the cost of redeveloping downtown.

"Any time you start buying up private property, it gets expensive, and these plans would require a land of land purchases," he said.

However, he added: "I do like the idea of a normal intersection for Main and Silver Spring."

Vodicka lives on Main Street just two blocks from the proposed redevelopment of the 10-acre former Mammoth Springs Cannery site. "I like the ideas I'm seeing because at least we're doing something," he said.

"It's good that the Bugline Trail in that area is proposed to be routed away from Waukesha Avenue," Vodicka said, "and I like the way Sussex Creek is proposed to be opened up and rerouted to negatively impact the least number of people.

"But I wouldn't want to see any apartments in the mixed-use development at Waukesha and Main," Vodicka said. "Condos, maybe, because it's ownership, and for the retail stores and offices, let's not have another maze of a parking lot like out at Pick 'n Save."

The village is looking at the downtown redevelopment plan for a variety of reason: the failure of the underground pipe that carries Sussex Creek; the advance planning needed for rebuilding Main Street by 2016; and and the desire to be able to work effectively with the potential developer of the former location.

The meeting was held by the Community Development Authority . Ralph Benka is one of its members and a former village trustee.

"Is it a plan set in concrete? No. Is it a conceptual plan? Yes," he said. "It's something that gives us a starting point for thinking about what the future can be."

"People can look at these plans, and in a few days when they drive past a spot they were studying, can think about what they saw and visualize how it might be," Benka said.

After village officials compile the comment sheets filled out by those who attended Thursday's meeting, the CDA will review that feedback and formulate a schedule for a redevelopment plan.

Electronic images of the plans can be seen and studied in detail both on the village website and also by clicking on the plan images that appear with this story.