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Warren Auto Group Withdraws Proposed Dealership Expansion

One of the questions asked most often around Jamestown is, “Why don’t things ever change?”

The simple answer is city residents don’t let things change – even relatively small things, like purchasing property near a park to allow a local business to expand.

A proposal by Dave Warren Auto Group to purchase Lafayette Street between 10th and 11th streets to give Warren more room to expand his dealership’s lot and renovate maintenance bays became messy quickly. Residents voiced some concerns that needed to be addressed – like how the street closure could take away access to Chadakoin Park and could make responding to emergency situations at the park more difficult. City officials and Warren did their best to address those issues by creating a cul-de-sac turnaround at the end of 11th Street so the dead-end road would lead back to Washington Street. The project would also have made it safer for people to leave Warren’s dealership by rerouting traffic from the dealership from Washington Street to 10th Street, where there is a stop light.

Some residents’ issues went far beyond Warren’s proposal and further poisoned the proposal – suggesting that the city should be doing more to make improvements to the park, that Warren should hire local residents to be auto mechanics and sales people and that because the park is mostly used by the African-American community, the possible changes to the park are a race issue. Nothing Warren or city officials did or said could overcome such rhetoric.

On Monday, Warren did the neighborly thing and withdrew his project. It is disappointing, because Warren’s project would have improved one of the lots on a gateway into the city’s downtown, increased the tax base associated with the dealership and provided temporary work for contractors while allowing a new business to expand. The status quo won once again.

If we can’t find a middle ground on something relatively minor like changing traffic patterns near a park, how in the world are we going to redevelop the whole city?

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