Will Palmer Avenue Streetscape Reinvigorate Larchmont? Project to Begin Shortly

After nearly a decade of mulling it over, the Village of Larchmont plans to finally move forward with the Palmer Avenue Streetscape project, which will upgrade sidewalks, trees and curbs along Palmer Avenue from the train station to on 2005 Palmer.

The estimated $1.6 million project will be paid for with a combination of state grants and federal funding—$858K from the New York State Department of Transportation and two-part federal funding: $684K from the federal government and $128K from a Marchiselli program that offsets the non-federal share of roadway/sidewalk projects funded by the government—with the village shouldering approximately $42K of the burden. 

The village will initially take out five-year serial bonds totaling $1.6 million in order to finance the project, and will be reimbursed for the two-part federal funding upon completion of the project.

However, the $1.6 million project cost may not even be reached, said Village Treasurer Denis Brucciani, noting that the project's cost had been conservatively estimated for unanticipated expenses. If all goes as planned, the final charges could be as low as $1.2 million, he said.

Although the village received over 13 bids for the project, they haven’t yet picked a company to perform the work yet; they are hoping to finalize this at a July 16 work session in anticipation of work beginning within the next month.

“We really want to start this mainly because so many of our merchants have a holiday season and we hope to be able to get those merchants who do have holiday traffic taken care of as soon as possible,” said Mayor Anne McAndrews.

The project’s completion is expected to take five months.

Several empty storefronts dot Palmer Avenue’s landscape from recently shuttered businesses including Globe Bar & Grill, Vieira Organics, Suede and April’s Closet.  It still remains to be seen whether the project will attract new businesses to the area.

Pint-sized “co-mayor” for the day Reed Colloton called roll for the trustees who unanimously approved the resolution. 

For more information and to view a copy of the resolution, please click here. 

What do you think about the Palmer Avenue Streetscape project?  Let us know in the comments below.