The last phase of New Hyde Park’s upgrade of the Jericho Turnpike business district got under way this week with the start of preliminary work by contractor J Anthony Enterprises.
“They’ve broken ground. The contractor’s out there,” Village of New Hyde Park Trustee Donald Barbieri said on Tuesday.
Barbieri, the village board liaison on the Operation Main Street project, said the contractor’s crews have been at work since Monday to drill holes in corners where bulbouts – rounded corners that would extend slightly into the roadway – will be built at several intersections.
Barbieri said J Anthony crews are probing to determine the exact position of utility lines under the sidewalk corners.
The project’s objective is to improve traffic safety and make the business district more aesthetically appealing and pedestrian friendly.
J Anthony Enterprises has also been stockpiling materials to complete work on the project.
“They were going to mobilize and bring materials into DPW that were going to be used on the job,” Barbieri said.
Barbieri said he and Tom Gannon, superintendent of the village Department of Public Works, held a planning session with J Anthony representatives last Friday. Representatives of utility companies also attended the meeting to review the position of power lines the construction work could affect.
The village board awarded the contract for the remaining work on Operation Mainstreet to the Bohemia-based company in August after the contractor submitted the low bid for $1.46 million.
Barbieri has said J Anthony would get as much of the project done as possible before the winter season. The work includes installation of benches 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 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 take place 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 DOT contractor, Flushing-based Tully Construction, also installed countdown traffic signals at the intersections of New Hyde Park Road, Lakeville Road and Hillside Boulevard.
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.
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 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.
