Selectmen Approve $140,000 Contract with New Canaan Company for Sidewalk Replacement on Park Street, St. John’s Place Extension

The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday morning approved an approximately $140,000 contract with a local company to replace an existing sidewalk downtown with an improved one.

The sidewalk pictured here, along the eastern side of Park Street headed toward God’s Acre, will be replaced as part of this project. Credit: Michael Dinan

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted 3-0  in favor of the $143,242 contract with Cross Street’s Peter Lanni, Inc. to remove and replace a concrete sidewalk along a stretch of the east side of Park Street north of Elm.

“We are taking out the current concrete sidewalk and using a colorized concrete for the bluestone look,” Kevin Brunner, a summer intern with the Department of Public Works, told the Board at its regular meeting, held in Town Hall. (Public Works Director Tiger Mann is on vacation, Moynihan said.)

Joined by DPW Town Engineer Maria Anne Coplit, Brunner said the project would involve replacing concrete curbing with granite curbing, among other improvements. 

The section of sidewalk to be replaced starts at the southern entrance to the Park Street Lot and continues east along the hill that slopes down in front of of God’s Acre, on St. John’s Place Extension, officials said.

Devereaux asked whether the town had solicited bids from more than two parties. 

Brunner said that yes, five companies reviewed the project but that just two came back with bids. Another company put in a bid of approximately $206,000, he said.

Brunner had spent the final month of his senior year at New Canaan High School with DPW through the popular Senior Internship Program, from mid-May through early June.