Braintree-Weymouth Landing Beautification Moves Forward

By the end of this year, the Braintree-Weymouth Landing revitalization, paid for by a state grant and including aesthetic, traffic and pedestrian improvements, should be nearly complete, Mayor Joseph Sullivan said at a public meeting on Feb. 9 at .

"We're at the final design phase, we're ready to go," Sullivan said, adding that Braintree and Weymouth are ready to "put this on the street and see how the market responds."

Working together, both communities received a $2.4 million Public Works Economic Development (PWED) Program grant from the state, aimed at enhancing transportation infrastructure to stimulate business development. The East Braintree and Weymouth Landing area will also see new zoning regulations, affecting 52 properties on 25 acres on the Braintree side, as .

Sullivan said that the beautification and traffic improvements part of the project will be put out to bid over the next two months, with construction to begin this spring and 80 percent to 90 percent of it to be complete by the end of 2011. PWED's deadline on the project is June 2012, with a possible extension available that Sullivan said he does not plan on using.

Weymouth Mayor Susan Kay said there may be some "nuisance" related to the construction for a short time, but that the area will soon be "beautiful" and the new streetscaping will show off the area for business developers.

The 100-percent engineered plans were presented by Richard E. Latini, a Senior Civil Engineer with Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc. New lamps, benches, trash cans and trees were among the enhancements Latini described, as seen in a selection of the slides to the upper right of this text.

PWED money will also go toward transferring a number of utility poles underground, fixing unsafe crosswalks, improving traffic islands and patterns, and making the .

An East Braintree resident, Bill McLeod, voiced concerns to Sullivan about the traffic coming out of Brookside Road onto Commercial Street. McLeod said he believes that cars should only be allowed to enter Brookside, not leave, and be routed through the neighborhood behind the Landing.

Sullivan said the project had been comprehensively vetted by town and private engineers and the public, and that such a change might create problems for people in that neighborhood.

Another issue brought forward on Wednesday night were the utility poles. Some residents felt more of them should be moved underground and that the town might have leverage with the relevant companies to get their help. Sullivan said that depending on how the bids come in, there might be more funding for the switch. "What we didn't want to do tonight was show you false advertising," he said.

To offset construction uncertainties, the plan as proposed has $240,000, or 10 percent of the grant total, set aside for unforeseen problems, Sullivan said.

"Now is a good time to be going out to bid," he said. "The market's hungry."