Plan Would Redo Area Of City Hall

The future shape downtown Ann Arbor will takra on is anyone's guess. But one man is doing more guessing. Joe Monroe, senior planner for the city Planning Department, has prepared a plan for construction of a public safety building adjacent to City Hall, between it and División St. The structure, as Monroe sees it, i would be seven l stories high, cost approximately $6 million and would house the city's Pólice and central Fire Departments, and the District Courts, Monroe also thinks his plan would help set a tone for redeveloping the central I business district which would keep I downtown Ann Arbor from going the I way downtown areas have gone in many, cities - dovn_!lilL- - i - M Presently, Monroe's plan is just that- Monroe's plan. He prepared it in coniunction with his job with the city and a part of gradúate work at the Lawreno Institute of Technology in Southfield. The plan has no official sanction yet but will be presented to the Planmn Commission next Tuesday as a concep for a public safety development The eventual need for a public safety building has been recognized by city oiücials for some time. In the original Capital Improvemens Budget prepared for City Council, Administratör Guy C. Larcom Jr. strongly recommended council recognize the need for such a building, and ba suggested steps be taken to place a bonding issue on the April ballot. Larcom has also recommended that I $30,000 of the city's federal revenue I sharing funds be used to conduct a thorI ough study of a public safety facility. Last year Larcom told council that at I that time there was a need for the I equivalent of another half-story of City 1 Hall space. This need is said to be in] creasinat the rate of a half-story each J vear A public safety building would 1 vide two floors of space in City HaU by I moving the Pólice Department and 1 trict Courts. The public safety buildmg I designed by Monroe would serve the I city's safety needs until 1995. I But Monroe's plan includes more than iust construction of a new building. It is also a conceptualization of redeveloping the image and uses of the downtown area. The plan calis for closing Ann St. between N. División and N. Fourth Ave., and the City Hall-public safety building complex would then take up land m both blocks between Huron and Cathenne 1 The northern part of this complex would be an open green area. N Fifth Ave. between Catherme and ■ Hur'on would also be closed to traffic I and would become part of this green or I opsn space area. I Monroe points out the workability of I the plan depends on División St. I ing a two-way thoroughf are with perhaps I some minor widening. This would be necessary to allow pólice and fire vehicles exiting the public safety building to go either way on División. To implement the plan several properties around City Hall would probably have to be condemned, including a parking lot restaurant, two realty offices and a service station where the new building would stand plus several homes' along Ann St. , Monroe says one of these homes, at División and Ann, is a historie home. He suggests the entire structure mightbe moved to a vacant lot along N Fifth Ave. This, he said, would also help JN. Fifth Ave become a historie district. The Dlan also calis for redevelopment of the block immediately west of City Hall Monroe sees the building of a new parking structure at the northeast corner of Huron and Fourth Ave. to serve city and county workérs, and the general public. The present parking space in the middle of the "U" shaped County Buüding could then become more office space l or could be terraced, Monroe suggests. The area on the south side of Ann St., across from the Armory, could also become a greenways open area. The historie central fire station would remain as it is, but could be used for perhaps a museum or extra office space lor City he public safety building itself would be made of the same brick as was used in City Hall. The southern face of it along Huron St. would be made of a reflective dark glass material parking area around City .Hall would be planted over and landscaped, and some public parking and parking for fire and pólice vehicles would be unilonn.'alh the iniiklujjM