Outdoor seating and social spaces at restaurants downtown could be expanding as part of a Georgetown effort to revamp pedestrian spaces around the business district.
Called parklets, restaurants would be allowed to expand into sidewalks and public on-street parking areas for extra outdoor seating or to create “sidewalk cafes” that are three parking stalls wide.
During the November 25 Georgetown City Council workshop, city staff discussed the idea and presented options to city council, including a pilot program that could start in the spring.
“We see some of these businesses kind of spilling out into our sidewalks already with chairs and benches and things. So [we’re] just seeing how we can maybe clean that up a little bit and move forward with offering that is more of a strategic goal,” said Kelly Trietsch, Georgetown’s chief development officer.
One of the considerations from council was impacts to surrounding businesses and parking. “This is something that I would be interested in us pursuing,” Council Member Jake French said. “I would want us to be thoughtful about it in terms of the overall impact of downtown parking, and recuperating the cost of that [since the spots would be occupied].”
A sentiment expressed by council member Ron Garland and other council members was how sidewalk safety would be ensured.
“I’m not sure that a [trial program] off of the Square is going to give us the kind of information that we might be looking for,” he said, referencing increased foot traffic on the Square compared to other areas of town.
Council Member Shawn Hood said a pilot program could be developed with some minimal design guidelines along the building code to ensure life safety. Council Member Ben Butler said he liked the idea, but felt execution could be impractical where sidewalk space is already limited.
“Here you have a four-foot wide sidewalk space. That’s not enough with two people, with a child in between,” he said. “You can’t do that in four feet, we don’t have the room.”
However, he still thought it was worth pursuing in areas where more space was available, and if there is plenty of room for people to pass each other. Mr. Hood said with the approved Downtown Master Plan, restaurants off the Square proper could have an opportunity to be as much of a draw as those directly on the Square.
“I think this provides a vehicle where they can at least be back on a level playing field,” Mr. Hood said.
Mayor Josh Schroeder said some of the concerns of council were not going to be answered until a pilot program for parklets is done.
“I think we should do a pilot of the parklet so that we can see what it looks like, how it works, and then we build a policy,” Mr. Schroeder said.
“If we decide to go forward, then we can learn from that pilot to address a bunch of the stuff, because tons of your questions we’ll have to answer when we build out a policy if we go forward. We would only know if we did it.”
Mr. Schroeder agreed with Mr. Hood, and said his preference would be to see the parklets used on restaurants that are off the Square proper because of the changes to the Square that are in the Downtown Master Plan, like expanding the sidewalks and redirecting the flow of traffic around the Square.
City staff will return with more details about a pilot program in the spring.
“That’s the beauty of a pilot program,” Ms. Trietsch said. “You can go in with clear expectations of these [parklets] are only permitted for up to 12 months. So we can just test the program, see how it works, see how it’s implemented within our downtown.”
Editors Note: This story has been updated with the correct spelling of Chief Development Officer Kelly Trietsch's last name.