‘Downright Unsafe’ Parking Malls to Get Facelift

Two parking malls on East Park Avenue will undergo the knife starting this spring after the City Council approved a municipal cooperation agreement with Nassau County to reconstruct the lots last week.

The county will fully reimburse the city for the designs and reconstructions costs for the parking malls the county owns between Long Beach Boulevard and Monroe Boulevard and between Neptune Boulevard and Roosevelt Boulevard.

“The only thing that is still being processed and negotiated is the first allocation of money,” said City Manager Charles Theofan at the March 15 meeting. “And we’re just clarifying the contract, which will be for the sum of  $1 million, with the secondary funding to come for the $750,000 that will be needed to do the parking mall between Neptune and Roosevelt.”

Theofan said the lots were in “a horrendous state of disrepair” and “downright unsafe,” referring to their potholes and broken curbs, with the lot between Long Beach Boulevard and Monroe in greater disrepair.

Last November, with the Melville-based RBA Group to redesign the parking malls. The city wanted to expedite the project by funding and performing the engineering and reconstruction work in order to break ground by spring, rather than have the county pay up front and risk having the project delayed for months.

At the tiCouncil President Thomas Sofield expressed concern that, with the county’s finances in disarray, the city may not be reimbursed for the money it would laying out to take on this project.

Theofan assured the council then that when city and county officials had met earlier last year, County Executive Ed Mangano told him that the project had already been approved as a line item in the county's capital plan for 2011-2014.

“I was asked [then], well why are we going ahead spending this if we can’t be entirely sure that we will be getting the money from the county,” Theofan said last Tuesday. “Well, this is one resolution that will allow us to do that.”

Theofan praised Legislator Denise Fore, R-Long Beach, for her “help and persistence” in getting this project started that has been a long time coming. “The city and Legislator Ford have been fighting for this for many, many years and it’s finally happening,” he said.  

Councilmember Len Torres said he has received calls from citizens who are concerned about crossing East Park Avenue from the paring malls to patronize the businesses on both sides of that main thoroughfare. Torres asked that with the reconstruction project, the city look into ways to slow down traffic there.

“Some folks are practically crippled trying to cross the street and drivers are coming at them at 40 milers per hour,” Torres said. “Just a suggestion: maybe we could look at how we can make that a little safer for the folks.” Theofan concurred.