Melrose Missed Deadline For $400K Grant Application

MELROSE, MA — Melrose blew past a May 1 deadline to finish the city's first roundabout, losing an opportunity to apply for the next round of a $400,000 state grant, a decision the city engineer called "strategic and realistic" in order to get work done properly and improve Melrose's chances of being awarded the grant next time it applies.

The project revolves around turning the three-way intersection and triangular green space at Howard and Green streets into a brick-laid roundabout. The city at first appeared to be in a hurry to get it done in time, but now it may not be finished until late June or July.

City Engineer Elena Proakis Ellis told Patch the city isn't missing much since it can't just take the $400,000 and apply it to any project - the money can only go to Complete Streets projects already submitted by the city. She also said it's not holding up any projects: the next project scheduled is improving sidewalks in the Hoover School neighborhood, and if the city applied May 1, it wouldn't hear back until the late summer and work wouldn't start until the fall, Proakis Ellis said. That isn't ideal timing for working on walkways in a school zone.

"Even though we wouldn't want to miss an opportunity for a funding round, we realized in reality it wasn't going to affect the schedule of a project," Proakis Ellis said.

The city is not required to work on the Complete Streets projects in any specific order, but Proakis Ellis said Melrose doesn't want to deviate from the planned order.

Proakis Ellis also said the state likes to award the grant to different communities, "so having a two-year gap would probably benefit us" when the city applies again.

Missing the deadline doesn't cost Melrose any money, something Ward 2 Alderman Jen Lemmerman pointed out. The roundabout project is still fully paid for by the last grant Melrose received.

"Of course you want to be able to take advantage of all the state funding that's possibly available, but this isn't the kind of project that can be rushed through in order to make a deadline," Lemmerman said.

Some area residents and business owners had objected to the project, citing in part lost parking spaces. While they hoped for more time to raise concerns, members of the Board of Aldermen approved the moving of utility poles connected to the project, with some pointing to the May 1 deadline as a reason to push forward.

Proakis Ellis said having to work with National Grid, Verizon and Comcast for things like moving poles slowed the project. The utilities realized once the work started it would take longer than expected, she said.

The extra time to complete the project "took a lot of pressure off," Proakis Ellis said. The project is now meeting its new timeline.

"My priority is to make sure the project is done safely and making sure it's done properly," Lemmerman told Patch last week, pointing out its an area she traverses in her daily commute. "It's going to be a pretty significant traffic pattern change in the area."