At the Board of Trustees Meeting on December 2, 2013, Saratoga Associates was unanimously approved to lead the Village’s Integrated Main Street Streetscape master planning process. Saratoga Associates, a landscape architecture, architecture, and planning firm along with Weidlinger Associates, an engineering firm, will provide a master plan document that will serve as a practical guide, providing the Village with recommendations for specific staged, strategic and coordinated capital improvements for the Main Street district. These improvements will include both near term and long-range projects. To that end the Village will first establish a critically important steering committee that will meet with the firm’s consultant team to provide input and guide the planning process. In addition, Saratoga Associates will conduct a public information-sharing meeting in the coming months. That meeting will be followed in the spring by a presentation and discussion of the concept plans developed from community input and the firm’s professional expertise, followed by a presentation of a final master plan.
Saratoga Associates was selected to lead this project from a highly competitive group of firms. The firm has a long history of supporting municipalities with community planning and streetscape design. Saratoga Associates was selected, in part, because of their experience with building upon the unique characteristics of an historic Village. A leading theme for this Main Street Streetscape master planning process will be the improvement of pedestrian safety and an enhancement of the pedestrian experience along Main Street including consideration of traffic calming measures and a review of crosswalks.
The final report from Saratoga will include illustrative plans for:
• Signage (way finding and municipal information, including banners)
• Trees and tree wells
• Lighting pole recommendations
• Sidewalk modification recommendations
• Crosswalk recommendations
• Street amenities – recommendations for benches, garbage, recycling container types and placement
Upcoming meetings will be announced on the Village website and in The Rivertowns Enterprise. The Village is seeking a large turn out of interested citizens to provide community input into the planning process. For further information about the project please contact: Larry Schopfer at lschopfer@irvingtonny.gov. Documents and the public discussion of this contract and project can be viewed at www.irvingtonny.gov/streetscape.