Town To Complete Sidewalk Installation on Seminary Street

Town officials last week approved a $14,500 contract with a Bridgeport-based company to design sidewalk sections on Seminary Street.

The work will help create a continuous sidewalk on Seminary from Park to Elm Street, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.

“There are two or three stretches of Seminary that we do not have sidewalks on,” Mann told members of the Board of Selectmen during their Dec. 13 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.

“Right now we have sidewalks that come down from Park Street to 66 Seminary and then it stops and then it begins again for a small piece right before Oenoke Lane, and then stops again and then finishes down to Elm Street,” Mann said. 

He continued: “We have had requests to do this ever since the original installation back in 2007. We had worked on other areas of town, areas we felt were maybe a little bit more pressing—the sidewalk stretch at Mead Street, Richmond Hill and Grove Street. Those three. So this is another piece where we’d like to tie it all in together so that if you lived in that area you could walk down to the market, or vice versa, you could come to Town Hall.”

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Cabezas DeAngelis.

The selectmen asked when the survey work would start (January or February), whether New Canaan has a management plan for its sidewalks (yes) and whether there’s an index measuring sidewalk quality similar to one for streets (yes, Seminary was at about 75-76 at last check).

Corbet asked whether the plan was for an installation in 2023 or early-2024. 

Mann said, “Depending upon the difficulty of the design. The areas that were not done are quite difficult. If you can imagine, if you drive down there you will see how built it is—there are stone walls in the area, there are a lot of plantings, there are a lot of improvements that the residents have made, so areas of concern are quite difficult to mitigate. So there will be some discussions with the property owners.”