HANOVER — The town is considering a $14.9 million project that could bring major changes to South Main Street in the downtown commercial district, including eliminating 28 on-street parking spots.
Planning is in the early stages. A complete project design is expected in the next year, with a formal vote by residents at Town Meeting in May 2028.
In the meantime, infrastructure in the area is failing. Since last April, there have been several water main breaks downtown. Other issues with underground power lines, inadequate storm water drainage and poor sidewalk conditions also require remediation, said Town Manager Robert Houseman.
Beyond the below-ground concerns, the diagonal parking on both sides of the street tends to pose a problem of its own: larger vehicles tend to stick out into traffic from both directions, Houseman said Wednesday by phone.
The project design would address this by reconfiguring South Main Street parking, but that means there would be fewer spaces, which some business owners oppose.
“The number one concern Upper Valley customers voice to me as a business owner, as the reason they don’t come to Hanover, is parking,” Jennifer Packard, owner of Molly’s Restaurant, said Tuesday.
The preliminary design, completed by Bowman Engineering, a national firm with a New Hampshire office based out of Etna, includes changes to three blocks — from Wheelock Street to Dorrance Place — based on engineering standards and survey feedback.
Parking would become parallel on the west side of the street, where businesses such as Molly’s Restaurant, Hanover Haircutters and The Ivy Edit operate.
Diagonal parking on the East Side of the street will remain, with extended spaces to meet engineering standards of about 19 feet from the curb for 45 degree angle parking and about 17 feet for 30 degree angle parking, according to an FAQ document for the project. The center line of the road would shift accordingly, said Houseman.
The number of parking spaces is expected to decrease from 62 to 34 upon project completion, the FAQ sheet said.
“There’s less of it, but it is much safer because there’s less conflict for folks backing out into traffic with low visibility, especially with bikers,” Lucy Thayer, a senior project manager at Bowman, said during an informational meeting on Jan. 13, where an earlier version of the project was presented.
While downtown Hanover has the “luxury of slow traffic,” according to Houseman, the current parking situation still poses a hazard.
“You cannot drive on South Main Street when those spaces are fully occupied without having to travel into the other lane,” said Houseman.
While some have expressed concerns over delays caused by drivers trying to parallel park, Houseman said those issues already exist when drivers attempt to back out of the existing diagonal spaces.
For some business owners, parking on South Main Street is already bad enough without eliminating spots.
“We have people who don’t come back because they can’t find parking,” said Bob Romano, owner of Hanover Haircutters.
Romano is especially concerned about the scarcity of parking in the summer when restaurants are allowed to rent spaces for outdoor seating from May 1 to Oct. 31, which was first introduced during the pandemic.
As a result, Romano started a petition, which has garnered about 80 signatures, urging town officials to do away with the program that transitions parking to outdoor seating.
While Packard supports fixing infrastructure, such as sidewalks and sewer issues, she fears that eliminating nearly 30 parking spaces is too drastic, and that parallel parking will not be a smooth transition.
“Some of the cars stick out a little bit too far, I give credence to that. But I think there’s got to be a better way than parallel nowadays. Parallel parking, a lot of the time, isn’t even taught to young drivers,” said Packard.
Some business owners feel left out of the process because they don’t live in town.
“I also don’t have a vote on it because I can’t vote, same with a lot of owners who don’t live in Hanover,” said Allison Smith, of West Lebanon, who co-owns the Ivy Edit with her parents, Kim and Scott.
To make up for the decrease in parking that this project would bring, the town is figuring out how to direct drivers to the parking garage at 7 Lebanon St., which was partially closed until November, said Houseman.
Of the 289 total spaces in the garage, 135 are allocated to lease holders who pay a monthly fee, Parking & Downtown Division Lt. Christopher Swain said during the Jan. 13 informational meeting.
Swain reported that the open spaces had been running about 50% full in recent weeks, with busy periods between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The garage is typically full overnight due to the winter parking ban, which is set to end April 30.
Downtown employees can park in the garage for $6 a day, or go to the Thompson Lot on Summer Court, a 15-minute walk and four-minute drive from South Main Street. The Advance Transit Downtown/Dartmouth shuttle bus runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Heather Cantlin, who owns Bean’s Art Store, opened by her mother, Polly Bean Johnson in 1982, said she has a hard time competing with stores in areas with similar products, such as Michaels in West Lebanon, when her store has metered parking and others in the Upper Valley do not.
“If you’re going to any of the other towns, you’re not dealing with that. There’s plenty of parking in the street,” said Cantlin.
Over time, Canlin, who has worked at Bean’s for about 30 years, has seen a decline in small businesses in downtown Hanover, theorizing that the parking could be a factor driving them out, said Cantlin. When employees have to pay for parking, and prospective customers may avoid it altogether, it creates a loss of revenue.
The construction process will happen in phases to ensure the least disruption, despite the project requiring invasive construction like pulling up sidewalks and work on the underground water and power systems, said Houseman.
Work would be completed in smaller portions off peak timing, such as 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. There will also be blackout periods around events that draw more people, including Dartmouth Commencement, according to the FAQ document.
“We also need to be cognizant of the fact that our merchants and our restaurants, our retail and our offices still need to be able to function,” said Houseman.
In the 2027 budget, to be voted on at Town Meeting in May, $30,000 is a proposed allocation for completion of the design, said Houseman.
Once the design is complete and vetted by the Selectboard and Capital Improvements Committee, the cost estimate will be more accurate for the 2028 budget. The project will appear as a standalone warrant article next year, said Houseman.
Funding would be available in the form of debt service for bonds, paid for by sewer rate payers. The rest of the money would fall to the general fund, which is paid for by taxpayers. There is still a question of how much money will be bonded as opposed to taken out of capital reserve funds, said Houseman.
This spring, there will be a workshop with the Selectboard to work through more aspects of the project, then a subsequent public forum, said Houseman. The dates for these meetings are to be determined.
“Everything is subject to change until it’s funded for construction,” said Houseman.
The town is continuing to receive community feedback through a South Main Street survey published to its website.