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LARCHMONT, N.Y. The Palmer Avenue Streetscape Improvement Project will finally get under way after Monday nights Board of Trustees meeting in Larchmont.
The board awarded a $1,266,585.15 contract to DiMarino Brothers Contracting of Mount Vernon, and Mayor Anne McAndrews confirmed that the project will begin moving quickly from this point.
We will have a preconstruction meeting within the next week and we hope to break ground between now and Labor Day, McAndrews said.
The project, which has been in the works since 2000, drew keen interest from contractors, and 13 companies submitted bids.
There are those of us who remember when this began, McAndrews said. And it was all the way back in 2000.
The streetscape project will redevelop around the train station and down Palmer Avenue toward New Rochelle. New curbing, sidewalks, lamps, trees, trash cans and bicycle racks will be built along the corridor.
The village originally applied for a federal grant encouraging towns to spruce up their mass transportation centers. The grant would pay up to $670,000. However, the village decided it wanted to expand the area and get everything done at once, and that delayed the grant.
In expanding the project, the village had to get approval for each step by the federal agency overseeing the grant. The village applied for additional grants from the state, which added extra time to the process, but it gained $125,000 for the project because of it.
Little did we know how complicated and how difficult this would be. You still have to be approved by the state Department of Transportation even though we extended the area of the grant, McAndrews said.
The project will be done in increments to cause the least amount of inconvenience to the merchants.
We will time and sequence these sidewalk renovations as to interfere in the least way possible with the ongoing businesses, especially going into the holiday season, McAndrews said.
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