April 12–PORTSMOUTH — The city plans to turn a section of Vaughan Street into a one-way road during Cathartes Private Investments' construction of the new five-story AC Hotel.

City Manager John Bohenko and Public Works Director Peter Rice estimated it will take about a year to build the new hotel next to 3S Artspace. The 143-room hotel will feature a rooftop deck and bar.

City officials recently met with business owners near the construction project "just to assure them we're working closely with them," Bohenko recently told members of the Parking and Traffic Safety Committee.

"What I told the businesses and what I told the developer is that they have to get together and talk about how they can work together," Bohenko said. "These businesses have to be happy with the plan by the developer. If they're not happy, we're going to press harder."

Rice added "in order to construct the building, the developer is going to need to stage some equipment into one of the lanes, which restricts that section of roadway and causes some parking impacts."

Because that section of Vaughan Street to Maplewood Avenue is already narrow the city is making it one way, Rice said.

"It's actually been something the city has been considering in the past and we saw this as an opportunity to try to treat this as a pilot to see how traffic flowed during this process," he said.

Bohenko estimated the city would be losing about 10 parking spots on Vaughan Street during the hotel's construction. Because of that the city may consider limiting parking along Vaughan to three hours, while right now it's unlimited, Bohenko said.

"Right now, people get there very early and park all day and it doesn't seem to serve the businesses as well," he said, adding at some point the city will likely need to look at "the inconsistency there in terms of metering."

People can park at will on Vaughan Street for free while "100 yards away it's meters," Bohenko said.

Construction of the hotel will also eliminate a temporary parking lot that had provided 89 private spaces.