NY engineering firm hired for Portland’s Franklin Street redesign

File Photo / Courtesy City of Portland Franklin Street runs north-south on the left side of this photo. The project is to reconnect neighborhoods divided by 1960s construction, creating new housing and commercial opportunities.

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By Laurie Schreiber

Plans to redesign Franklin Street, a major corridor on the Portland peninsula, took another step forward with the recent hire of WSP USA Inc., an engineering firm with its U.S. headquarters in New York City.

WSP will conduct the final planning phase for the project, which is dubbed “Reimagining Franklin Street.”

WSP and community input, “will help shape one of the most significant projects in Portland’s history,” said Kevin Kraft, the city’s director of planning and urban development.

Set to begin later this month, the planning process will update and refine a conceptual design adopted by the city council as part of a 2015 Franklin Street Master Plan, and develop a land use and urban design plan for the street, according to a news release. The planning process is expected to take 10 months to complete.

Last month, the city and the Maine Department of Transportation were awarded $2 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The federal money will be matched by the city and MaineDOT, with each contributing $250,000.

Having the federal funds already in place will allow the city to move immediately into the design phase after the final planning stage is complete.

The final phase of planning will consider updates to the 2015 master plan, changes in transportation patterns, updated zoning and the significant development that has occurred along and near Franklin Street in the past decade.

The transportation portion will include an emphasis on safety and multimodal accessibility and connectivity for all users of the street including pedestrians, motorists, bicyclists and transit, as well as strengthening connections between neighborhoods bordering Franklin Street.

The project is to reconnect Portland neighborhoods divided by construction of the Franklin Street arterial in the late 1960s, resulting in demolition of whole neighborhoods, displacement of longtime residents and a physical divide through the city.