Town officials this week approved an approximately $38,000 contract with a New Canaan-based company to create a new sidewalk “bumpout” in front of The Playhouse.
The contract with Peter Lanni Inc. will also see bricks installed in the area in front of the movie theater where there’s a patchwork of asphalt and concrete at present, officials said during Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen.
The sidewalk in front of The Playhouse on Nov. 5, 2024. Credit: Michael Dinan
“What this will do is continue the granite curb past The Playhouse, and then it’ll come back into our existing curb in between The Playhouse and Solé,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann said at the meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference.
He continued: “And then we’ll have brick sidewalk leading all the way from the platform out, at that point in time, to the granite curbing and a new pedestrian ramp associated with it. So it’ll give a nice, big, large platform area similar to what we have down the street.”
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the $38,450 contract.
Lanni, who did the original sidewalk work in front of the movie theater, has held his brickwork pricing since 2020, Mann said.
The selectmen asked Mann how many square feet of sidewalk will be added (1,600 square feet of brick plus 80 linear feet of granite curbing), whether the barriers will remain in place after the work is done (no), whether any parking spaces will be lost (no, it’s already in the 25-foot zone on either side of a crosswalk) and when the work could start (immediately with approval).
Carlson urged Mann to ensure that the work is completed by holiday shopping season’s official kickoff—the New Canaan Chamber’s Holiday Stroll (Dec. 6)—and to postpone the project if there’s even a chance that it would interfere.
Carlson also said she loves how the brick looks and also asked whether Mann could find an alternative that doesn’t heave and create a tripping hazard for pedestrians—a common complaint lodged at Town Hall.
“I have to deal with all the complaints of the tripping in town,” she said. “Is there a way to—for the new stuff that we do—can you make it look like it ties in by using a different material than brick? Because I’m not loving this brick right now.”
Karl noted that the area in front of The Playhouse is a “high visibility spot.”
Mann said that there’s no way to re-create how well the bricks tie together with a different material, such as colorized asphalt or stamped concrete.
Carlson said she wanted to flag the expansion of brick downtown since it’s “a high maintenance material,” adding that Westport did all of its “brick” sidewalks with stamped concrete.
Karl said it would be interesting to see how the brick holds versus stamped concrete and that the town should consider a standalone installation somewhere.
Carlson said the problems with tripping on heaved brick is “becoming an every-week-complaint that I get about these sidewalks.”
“And hence, it becomes an every -week-that-I-have-to-reach-out-to-Tiger complaint,” she said. “And we just need to find—it’s beautiful, it’s absolutely beautiful—it’s not super functional.”
Murphy Carroll suggested the town may look at “certain areas” to use brick and “everything everywhere else maybe we have to go more utilitarian.”
“There may be two streets that are quintessential New England and that’s how we want it to look,” she said.
How many parking spaces are being lost?
Zero. The work is all happening within the 25-foot zone on either side of the crosswalk, where parking is not allowed under state law (as New Canaan learned a few years back!)