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Council reviews vacation requests for Grove Street NW and Sycamore Street NW affecting Gobble Fite Lumber, McIntyre LLC
Summary
Planning staff and a civil engineer briefed the council on two right-of-way vacation requests that would formalize long-standing private use and support an event venue; staff said utility easements and an ingress/egress easement would be retained.
City planning staff and an engineer presented two vacation requests for portions of Grove Street Northwest and Sycamore Street Northwest that would transfer segments of city right-of-way to adjacent property owners, while retaining utility and access easements.
Tommy Woods of the Planning Department told the council the vacation requests had come before the Planning Commission in November 2024 and that staff asked a civil engineer and the developer to provide a synopsis. Nathan Tomberlin, a civil engineer with Pew Wright McAnally, summarized the requests: one portion of Sycamore Street cuts across the Gobble Fite Lumber yard, which the company has used for about a century, and another portion is on a dead-end segment of Grove Street that principally serves the adjacent lots.
Tomberlin said the vacations would "clean up" the right-of-way and support an event venue for the Grove Street area. He also said utility easements would be retained for infrastructure that crosses the right-of-way and that an ingress/egress easement would remain for the Sycamore site.
A councilmember asked why the city would transfer the property when private parties had simply been using it, noting the sections are fenced and maintained by the private users. That councilmember said, "they've used it for about a hundred years and now we just give it to them because they've used it." Staff responded that the council must decide and that retained easements would protect existing utilities and access.
The items are listed on the agenda as Resolution No. 25143 (vacation request no. 5504-24 for a portion of Grove Street NW) and Resolution No. 25144 (vacation request 555-24 for a portion of Sycamore Street NW) for McIntyre LLC and Gobble Fite Lumber Company Inc. The work-session transcript records the staff briefing and council questions but does not record a formal council vote on the resolutions during the work session.
Staff said they will return with any follow-up materials requested by the council and that the vacations would preserve easements for utilities and ingress/egress where required.
