The long-awaited final phase of New Hyde Park’s Operation Mainstreet project to upgrade the village’s Jericho Turnpike business district is expected to be underway next week.
At Tuesday night’s village board meeting, village Trustee Donald Barbieri said contractor J Anthony Enterprises is making final preparations before starting work on the project.
“The contractor should be mobilizing to begin construction next week,” Barbieri said.
Barbieri said he and Tom Gannon, superintendent of the village Department of Public Works, are meeting on Friday with representatives of J Anthony and utility companies to make any changes in construction plans needed to avoid disrupting power or water lines.
“We’re all but there,” Barbieri said.
The village board awarded the contract for the remaining work on Operation Mainstreet to Bohemia-based J Anthony Enterprises in August after the contractor submitted the low bid for $1.46 million.
Barbieri said J Anthony would get as much of the project done as possible before the winter season, although the planting of flowers and shrubs in the medians installed along Jericho Turnpike, which were installed as part of a state Department of Transportation project, will be made in the spring.
The DOT’s repaving work on side streets along Jericho Turnpike resulted in the most recent in a series of delays of the New Hyde Park makeover project.
The final phase of Operation Mainstreet, which was originally expected to start last fall, has been previously delayed by changes required by the state. The village was also delayed by the DOT’s requirement that the village issue a declaration that the project would not have a negative environmental impact in May.
Barbieri along with other village trustees have repeatedly expressed frustration with the drawn out process of bringing the project to the finish line,
Operation Mainstreet is intended to make Jericho Turnpike safer and friendlier to pedestrian shoppers.
The work will include the installation of bulb-outs – rounded corners that would extend slightly into the roadway – at some intersections. Benches will also be installed on sidewalks, which would be paved with the same rustic red brickwork already in place in some sections of the road near the intersection of Jericho Turnpike and Lakeville Road.
The New Hyde Park project is being funded through a federal transportation appropriation of $1.425 million secured by U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy under the community block grant program.
Tully Construction has resurfaced Jericho Turnpike in two phases as part of a $21.1 million DOT project. It repaved the busy thoroughfare between Herricks Road and Glen Cove Road in July and recently completed the second phase, repaving the roadway between Herricks Road and 225th Street in Bellerose Village.
