Village of Lake Placid officials held a virtual information session Thursday evening on the upcoming major renovation of Main Street. The overview included a review of plans, detours, impacts, and answered questions.
A years-long plan to upgrade the infrastructure of the main artery in Lake Placid will soon begin. The Town of North Elba/Village of Lake Placid Community Development Commission held its second information session on the three-year project, which will repave and upgrade the streetscape and underlying infrastructure and parking and loading zone enhancements.
Commission Chair Dean Dietrich says a bid for construction has been awarded. “It came in about $10.1 million and that’s about what was anticipated. The DOT also in terms of the funding we had some good news there in that the DOT is going to pick up $2.97 million of the project which is roughly a million dollars more than the funding stream called for. So since the last time we talked we have the costs and the funding streams are pretty much in place and what we are doing now is finalizing the mobility construction plans and establishing the communications and marketing plans.”
Because Main Street is the primary street in Lake Placid for retail and restaurant business Development Director Haley Breen says it will be crucial that tourists and residents are aware of daily construction plans. “Overall we’re going to be meeting with the contractor at the end of every day and having a conversation about what they’re going to be doing the next day and creating a construction forecast for the next day and possibly the next two days based off of that information. During construction if there’s any interruption of services, and interruption in utilities such as water, electric, sewer, or an interruption in accessibility if you know a store or entryway is going to be closed off we will try to give all of the people impacted by this at least 48 hours advance notice. But that will be done on behalf of the contractor.”
Dietrich explained that the reconstruction of Main Street will be seasonal and segmented to prevent as much disruption as possible. “The work will take place on a daily schedule. There will be no work on the weekends, no work on any holidays and that includes the day before a holiday so any holiday traffic can move fairly freely. The day to day schedule they will be coneing off the work areas. The construction zone is all of Main Street but there will be different work areas every day and they’ll be delineating those. While they do the digging, while do any construction work, they have to maintain traffic flow as much as possible. At the end of every day the surface is restored to a temporary surface which is usable if you’re in cars or pedestrians or strollers.”
Outgoing Mayor Craig Randall responded to a question submitted via chat asking how the cost of the project will impact the village budget. “It is a $10 million project. Approximately $7 million of that is funding that is not going to be a cost to the taxpayers. Four million dollars of it approximately is various grant funds and just shy of $3 million is a commitment from the Department of Transportation for the replacement of the travel lanes that are involved in this construction phase. So we’re very fortunate it will not become a long term debt.”
Construction is expected to start in the next few weeks. Officials say contractors are waiting for the spring thaw. Project completion is planned in the winter of 2023.
