By Michael Lafleur, mlafleur@lowellsun.com
LOWELL -- The new, 900-space public parking garage on Middlesex Street is essentially complete and could open as early as next week, city officials said yesterday.
The last hurdle is for an inspector from the state Office of Public Safety to examine the $25 million facility's elevator, said Assistant City Manager Adam Baacke, director of the city Division of Planning and Development.
Baacke said though the state agency has up to 30 days to schedule that inspection, city officials are hoping to receive an appointment this week. If that happens, the garage could be open by early next week, he said.
Local inspectors cannot issue the garage its official certificate of occupancy -- required to open any building in the city -- until the elevator is inspected.
While there are relatively minor construction "punch list" items that have yet to be completed on the garage, Baacke said that work can be done after the facility opens.
Councilors last week voted to name the garage after former Mayor Edward J. Early Jr., who spent two decades as the Middlesex North register of deeds. Baacke said city officials are likely to hold the official ribbon-cutting and garage-naming ceremony sometime next month.
Meanwhile, the Lowell-based commercial real estate firm The EdgeGroup Inc., which will serve as the city's leasing agent for the 17,000 square feet of ground floor retail space in the garage, is in the midst of talks with several potential tenants for the facility, Baacke said. All are "food service tenants," he said, declining to identify them.
This story appeared in the Lowell Sun on Wednesday, March 12, 2008