The Village of Great Neck Board of Trustees considered two Middle Neck Road renovation projects at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Edna Guilor, an architect with oversight of both planned projects, informed Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman and the village trustees of the development of the buildings.
The first renovation discussed was the Great Neck Music Conservatory located on 625 Middle Neck Road.
“We are refurbishing everything that is existing,” Guilor said when questioned about which building materials would be used.
Guilor stressed the building would retain the same color and materials. The trustees could not come to an agreement over the arrangement of the building’s parking spaces to ensure safety and motioned for it to be discussed at a later date.
Guilor also said the plans for the Ever Fresh grocery store located at 533 Middle Neck Road were still in early development.
The design of the proposed renovation was met with criticism from the board.
“It is not a historic building which we wanted, it doesn’t belong on Middle Neck Road,” Kreitzman said after viewing the design proposals.
The trustees agreed the biggest problem in the plans was unaddressed problem of illegally parked delivery trucks that pose a safety hazard to pedestrians.
“It’s a good starting point, but needs to be tooled,” Deputy Mayor Mitchell Beckerman said.
Later in the meeting, several community members voiced concern about a request to place a four-way stop sign at the intersection of Maple Street and Beach Road.
One resident of Maple Street recounted numerous serious accidents at the intersection throughout the 40 years she has lived there. The resident blamed the steady increase of accidents on trees blocking the visibility to make a clear safe turn at the intersection. Another resident brought up the death of a child on Maple approximately ten years ago and the fact that nothing transpired from that tragedy.
“Stop signs in this village are ‘stoptional,’ unfortunately and they shouldn’t be, but they are. People look at them as a possibility of ‘maybe we should stop,’ ‘maybe we should slow down’ or ‘’maybe we should roll through it,’” Trustee Mark Birnbaum said.
Having tried to work on this issue with the police before, the trustees claimed the police were unsuccessful in supplying significant data. The trustees plan on studying and reviewing the intersection to ensure the best safety measures are looked into.
