Mill Street Parking Lot Revamp Project Underway

In the coming months, the Mill Street Parking Lot in Bristol Borough will be overhauled.

Over the past several weeks, work on the borough’s large free parking lot has been underway. Crews have been excavating and ripping up portions on the years-old pavement that has become a haven for potholes.

Amanda Fuller, who works for the borough’s engineering firm Gilmore and Associates, briefed Bristol Borough Councl Monday evening. She said officials knew from the start that the overhaul of the parking lot would be a “challenging project.”

Repaving work for the parking lot will take place as the weather gets nicer, but preparation has already begun.

A 20-inch Aqua water main had to be relocated as the parking lot’s stormwater system was repaired.

Fuller said final stormwater pipe work is expected to be done this week.

In the coming weeks, some curbing will be fixed and several Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant curb ramps will be added to parts of the lot, Filler said.

Electrical system work is also being completed and testing will take place to make sure the wires running under the parking lot don’t need to be dug up and replaced, Bristol Borough Council President Ralph DiGuiseppe said.

Once all the work involving digging up the parking lot is completed, paving work will begin, Fuller said.

The work is being paid for by a $1 million Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant.

Although there are stormwater system upgrades, DiGuiseppe noted the project won’t eliminate flooding caused by a swollen Delaware River, which abuts the parking lot.

DiGuiseppe said there are improvements to let stormwater flow off the parking lot. A new system will also allow crews to clear debris easier from the flaps that help cut back on river water infiltrating the parking lot.

The location of the Mill Street Parking Lot used to be a water-filled basin for the Delaware Canal in the 1800s and early 1900s. The basin and docking area was filled in over the years after the canal closed in the early 1930s and later became the public parking lot.

In 2018, Borough Engineer Kurt Schroeder, of Gilmore and Associates, laid out a conceptual proposal to remake the waterfront area and parking lot. The plan showed an amphitheater, paved promenade along the river, an additional boat dock by the marsh, boardwalks in nature areas, a multi-level parking deck to replace the Mill Street Parking Lot, and bulkhead wall along the river. The plan also showed a block of Cedar Street and Wood Street as pedestrian malls in the central business district.

At the time, council members said the plan was just a proposal and would take millions of dollars to pull off.

In other business at the council meeting, Bristol Borough Manager Jim Dillon said the town has filed grant applications for work in the 1100 block of Cedar Street, a flood study for Green Lane, and repair work to a section of Maple Beach in the borough.

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