Looking East on Washington St., just East of Pennsylvania St.
The expansion of al fresco dining on Washington St. doesn't end there. At the intersection of Washington and Illinois, Tastings, a new wine bar in the Conrad that is scheduled to open in the fall, plans to have outdoor seating on the northeast corner, while Panera Bread has filed plans to have a seating area on the northwest corner (opening date not yet known).
7 comments:
This is great news! Thanks for the photo! In addition, Cafe Patachou, Rock Bottom, Capital Grille, Dunkin Donuts, Champs, and Scotty's (and more) all have outdoor seating on Washington St.
By the way, Panera has announced a mid-October opening downtown (if all goes as planned).
I'm all for outdoor dining, but I'm concerned that a few places might be narrowing the sidewalks too much on Washington. Rock Bottom and Penn Station are about 5 feet past the point of comfort for pedestrians. I've seen some bottle-necking there. This is just a small quibble, though. It's usually a good thing to have eyes on the street and spend more time enjoying the weather.
I wonder what that stretch of Washington will look like once the Cultural Trail comes through there (assuming they end up choosing Washington over Market for the central corridor). Their map projects that corridor to have divided bike and pedestrian paths, so hopefully the pedestrian path will be designed with the width necessary to maintain the large outdoor seating areas AND add a little width for pedestrians walking by.
Has there been indication that they will change it to Washington St? This has been discussed in the blogosphere (and I hope they do change it), but there hasn't been anything definitive. Making room for all that might require more right-of-way than the city is willing to take away from vehicles on Washington.
I've been to more than a handful of Cultural Trail presentations and they have been repeating a line about the Market vs. Washington decision for several years now:
"Officially, the Cultural Trail route is planned for Market St., but if we had to decide today, we'd use Washington St. We're still studying both alternatives."
At this point, I'd be shocked if they don't use Washington.
Placing the C.T. route along Washington would be a better allocation of resources. Let's face it, currently sidewalks and intersections along Washington St. are nothing special.
I'm with Kevin: narrowing the sidewalk to 5 or 6 feet is uncomfortable for both pedestrians and diners. (Ever eat outside at Barcelona?)
I also advocate strongly for the Washington St. route for the trail, but I've heard some murmurs that there are "sidewalk vaults" for basement access along Washington that might make it problematic (i.e. much more expensive).
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