Great Neck Park District officials said Thursday that they are now confident they can build a new office one the district’s current property and keep at least five out of the seven cherry trees.
Park District Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Lincoln said the architects hired to design the new office revised plans to allow the district to keep five of the seven cherry trees currently located on the 5 Beach Road property in their current location.
“Some [people] were concerned about saving trees, specifically the cherry trees,” Lincoln said. “We were able to save five of the seven.
Vincent Cangelosi of CDA Architects and principal architect for the project said the other two cherry trees could possibly be moved to another part of the property.
Lincoln said that if the trees cannot be moved, the district will plant two new ones.
The latest plans for the site reduce the number of parking spots from 29 to 21 and increases the size of the board room by 25 percent.
Spencer Levine, a landscape architect with CDA, saidhis firm had also scaled back the number of parking spaces for the new office from 29 to 21 in response to concerns from residents.
The 21 spots would still be two more than the current 19 spots The architects also plan to maintain some angled parking spaces along Beach Road as well.
Levine said the design plan calls for greenery to screen the parking lot from the Village Green. The lot would be located where the current office stands.
“We want to screen the cars but we don’t want to screen the area,” he said. “We don’t want to create a space where you can’t see into it at all.”
The greenery will be about six to eight feet high, Levine said.
“By pulling the parking area farther off the rose garden, it enabled us to actually preserve more evergreen trees as well,” Cangelosi said.
Cangelosi appeared before the board in December to present initial renderings of the new park district office, which will be located still at 5 Beach Road. He said in December that the new office will be mostly made out of composite cement and wood fiber, and will have a residential feel.
The project is expected to take a year with at least a couple of weeks in which heavy equipment is used. The architects said they hope to break ground sometime this year.
Among the issues to be addressed are potential problems with storm water.
“One of the biggest concerns were the low lying areas, such as near the front door, where water collects,” Levine said.
The traffic flow of the property will be the same – cars will enter from Beach Road and exiting on Willow Lane – the only difference being that cars will now circulate around the park office instead of in front of it.
Lincoln said there will be no additional personnel in the building and that the building will have no additional uses. The new office will be able to open its bathrooms while events are being held on the village green so residents don’t have to walk to Great Neck House to use the bathroom, Lincoln said.
The new board room will be able to hold about 50 people sitting, and is about 25 percent bigger than the current board room, Cangelosi said. It will also be able to function as a multi-purpose space.
Village of Great Neck Trustee Barton Sobel expressed concern at the meeting that by putting the office closer to the road – about 30 feet from Beach Road – there would be limited green space left over.
Commissioner Dan Nachmanoff said the park district will save a substantial amount of money by building the new office where the current parking lot is, while putting in the parking lot where the current office is.
By switching the office and parking lot placement, park district employees will be able to continue to work in the old office while the new one is being build, Nachmanoff said.
One resident suggested putting in a sidewalk on the east side of Willow Lane the entire length of the office’s property, citing concerns about students getting off the school buses that turn from Beach Road onto Willow.
Levine said he was not opposed to designing a sidewalk for the property, and would look into putting one in.
Sobel also expressed concerns about people being on the Village Green after the parks close at 9 p.m..
Lincoln said the park district has someone who patrols the parks and is supposed to tell people to leave if they are in the park after 9 p.m. If they do not leave, the patroller is supposed to call the police, Lincoln said.
“This is an ongoing problem not just in this park….we have our own people patrol till 2 a.m., and we have an agreement with school district where they help us patrol that we may enhance at some point,” Lincoln said. “Some of this is what the [Nassau County] police department is supposed to be doing.”
The park district covers all areas of Great Neck except Great Neck Estates, Harbor Hills, Lake Success, Saddle Rock and University Gardens.
