Merchants fret that planned repairs to Lower King will hurt business
Cindy Lupica of Marmalade, Dawn Greenberg of Aurora; see plan of park on Lower King in “Read more…”
January 20, 2012
by Christine Yeres
The town board has included in this year’s capital budget funds to repair 100-year-old sewer and water lines under South Greeley as well as those under Lower King Street. Expert consultants have warned that both sets are badly in need of replacement within the next two years, but some merchants on Lower King are worried that their businesses will suffer.
When they presented their budget last fall, town board members expressed their intention to hold off on the South Greeley project, since the merchants and their customers had just endured a lengthy bridge construction process on their front sides and parking lot re-do in back. The board turned its attention instead to Lower King. Some merchants there, however, pleaded to have the project to Lower King delayed too.
In its work session on Tuesday, town board members reviewed the town’s plan for improvements to Lower King Street: redo the four crosswalks of the Starbuck’s intersection and add a stop sign, move angled parking from the north side of Lower King to the south side, redo sidewalks and curbs, add lighting and create a seating area at the very end of the street. Around $650,000 has been allocated for the changes. Since both South Greeley and Lower King have been diagnosed as urgent cases for repair, the board wants at least one of them to be done this summer.
Three merchants from Lower King attended the meeting and gave differing input to the board. Two were new to the block, one has operated there for eight years.
Cindy Lupica of Marmalade, in business for eight years, begged board members to spare Lower King merchants the disruption. They, too, she asserted, had suffered during the period of bridge construction and needed a respite now. “I really feel you need to give us a chance to get back some traction from customers,” she said. “It will really hurt my business if you start three months from now.” As it did with the parking lot redo behind the South Greeley shops, the town is attempting to accomplish the most dramatic of the repairs to Lower King during the summer months, when the population is low. “But I’d rather live another year with shabby sidewalks and get some confidence back from customers,” Lupica concluded.
Pocket park plan for end of Lower King
Dawn Greenberg, the owner of Aurora, the very last store on Lower King, and Susan Maher, who owns Breeze, the shop next door, share a landlord. “I’m new,” said Greenberg, “but I feel as though it’s so hideous down at our end of the street, with no lighting or anything and a landlady who won’t do anything [by way of improvements]. Let’s get on with it. I think it needs to be done.”
Maher, newest on the block, concurred. “I’m all for beautification,” she said. “I would love a beautiful little park at the end of the street. There are five new businesses on Lower King, so there will be an impact.” But, she noted, Breeze had only just opened in September, so she was less familiar with the disruption caused by the bridge. She was sure about the difficulty of the street sign that stands at the curb smack in the middle of her front shop window and hoped that in a redo it might disappear. Both women said that their end of Lower King is very dark at night and that they would appreciate some lighting.
Supervisor Susan Carpenter told the three women that “at some point you have to worry about whether the infrastructure will hold—if we have breaks, it really will put you out of business.” She and Town Administrator Penelle Paderewski assured the three merchants that if the project plans and consultants can be lined up quickly, the most disruptive work—the tearing up of the street surface—would be accomplished in two months, July and August, effectively done by The Return to School in September. And at no time, they promised, would the entire street be made impassible. Parking might disappear for a time, but there would always be through-traffic. Once the pipes are replaced, the street itself will be repaired. Next come sidewalks, then the park at the end.
Everything depends on whether the plans can be finalized and the consultants and contractors lined up fairly soon, said Paderewski. If these can’t be arranged so that the work is finished by end of summer, she told the merchants, then the board would likely put it off.
I was at the meeting on Tuesday 1/17 and the one the week before on 1/10. Interestingly, prior to the 1/17 meeting, there was never any mention of sewer pipe issues.
Even this week, the Town Planner wasn’t aware that there is any problem with the sewer pipes on Lower King. (He thought the concern was with water main.) Since then, I looked online for articles and discussions on this and while we all know that the sewer pipes need to be replaced on South Greeley, the Lower King work to be done is described as limited to sidewalk, shifting the parking spaces to the other side of the street and putting in a pedestrian park.
If infrastructure needs to be fixed, then, of course, it should be but it seems as if the information isn’t all there yet.
It is incomprehensible that any merchant would oppose the repairs and improvements to the business district. Leaving the issue of broken infrastructure aside, the aesthetics of the shopping area leave quite a lot to be desired. Instead of railing at the Town, which is actually trying to improve your lot, take a ride to Katonah, Pleasantville, or even Scarsdale and Bronxville. None of these downtowns are in a state of disrepair- and are actually appealing places to shop. I’m embarrassed to live in such a poor appearing town and a lot of it is due to merchant opposition to any improvement that is proposed.
The updates and improvements have to be done, especially lower king street. The new stores on lower king chose their locations and agreed to the landlords terms, it’s not the towns problem! The work needs to be done!
Having lived here since 1998, I am EXCITED to see downtown Chappaqua getting some much needed TLC. I walk around Pleasantville, Scarsdale and Armonk and always feel like our town is the ugly step sister to their Cinderella. For years we’ve been hearing that our town will get a makeover once the bridge is finished. The bridge is done, let’s get on with it!
At this meeting the condition of the Lower King Street pipes were deemed an “unknown”. In fact when the board asked the Town Planner and Penny if the Lower King Street pipes had issues currently or ever had issues, their answer was “Ummm, I’m not sure, I don’t think so.” Also, they didn’t even know if it was the water pipes they were talking about or the sewer pipes, they said they would have to clarify that.
Why is a plan being proposed that will cost this town $650,000 when the pipes haven’t even been looked at? Feels like another “gazebo” fiasco to me.
As far as downtown Chappaqua getting some TLC, that would be great. But one would hope that it wouldn’t be one street at a time. The town has agreed to update the Town Master Plan and it would seem to be a much better idea to “measure twice and cut once. We should have all the ideas on the table and then put together a solid cohesive plan for the business district as well as the rest of our town and then get to work to make it happen.
While it is odd that the town officials did not seem to know whether water or sewer pipes need to be replaced- or possibly both-it is a fact that the water pipe in front of Starbucks has broken several times in recent memory, leaving power and phone outages in the vicinity and icing of the roadway. Surely a review of those repairs and the condition of the water pipes is easily accomplished by our town officials. If replacement is needed, that should be undertaken prior to the replacement of the sidewalks. Why would you leave the underground work undone only to have to dig up the replaced sidewalks later? It makes no sense economically.
Those were gas lines that were broken by Starbucks, not water or sewer. There have not been power outages nor phone outages due to this in the last 8 years that I have been there. Only lost phone and electricity during storms never due to anything else.
