Wet Weather Delays Work on Alley Between Playhouse and LPQ

Town officials say they’re trying to wrap up work on the alley between The Playhouse and Le Pain Quotidien so that it’s open to shoppers during the holiday season.

Closed for the past month, the alley—or ‘allée,’ as it’s called by the Department of Public Works—is getting a new ramp and staircase connecting the Playhouse Lot to Elm Street. In addition to making the alley traversable to those with mobility challenges, the ramp is expected to help move delivery trucks off of Elm Street itself—part of a multi-phased plan to help traffic flow in the heart of downtown New Canaan.

Yet the project is still “at least two pours away,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann said, referring to concrete.

“They’re getting close to the secondary pour for the staircase itself,” Mann told members of the Board of Selectmen during their regular meeting, held Tuesday at Town Hall and via videoconference.

He continued: “The brick has been installed that ties Elm Street into the sidewalk, and they’ve started the brick line that runs straight down the middle, sort of a ‘yellow brick road,’ or ‘brown brick road’ to connect the two together. The weather’s not allowing anything to happen today [Dec. 2]. They’re out working today, but they’re not going to be able to pour just because of the conditions that they’ll face. And their goal is to continue to work on it. They’ve got additional staff working.”

The comments came during Mann’s regular update on DPW projects.

Selectman Steve Karl said that the town is open to paving the alley “temporarily until the spring” just so it’s usable sooner. 

“I’d rather have it open,” Karl said. “I think we all would rather have it open for the holidays.”

Mann responded that “that’s the goal.”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” he said. “It’s just we’re in the corner of three properties, jammed in the middle between two buildings.”

He added that two adjacent property owners “have been fantastic” in their accommodations. 

“Both have said, ‘Do what you have to do in order to make it work,’ ” Mann said. “They know it’s going to be beautiful. Terry [Spring] specifically has allowed us access in the back of her lot so that we can park the machine back there, utilize it to pour the concrete, all of that. She’s been very, very accommodating during this whole process. So I have to say that both of them have been fantastic, just by the nature of the beast of where we are. It’s very tight in the area to work. But that’s the goal, is to get it in so that we can have people actually come and go through that area.”

First Selectman Dionna Carlson noted that there are a number of garbage “toters” in the area now, saying “ I think it’s important to communicate how long before we can actually use the stairs so that the toters can go away and they can use those dumpsters that we just put in.” She referred to a new dumpster area in the Playhouse Lot.

Mann responded that he would get a timeline from the contractor. 

“The moment that the staircase is available, the toters will be gone,” Mann said.

Referring to the Holiday Stroll this weekend, Mann said, “For Friday night, we’re going to put them [the toters] in the allée so that they’ll be off the street. There’s no issue with that. In speaking to the hauler, he had no problem with them being in allée and then taking them out to Elm Street. Right now they’ve been on Elm Street, just sitting there.”

Mann added that he spoke to the head of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce and that the town will post “two liaisons” for the Stroll to instruct those approaching the allée from the parking lot to use the staircase behind White Buffalo to access Elm.

“We’ll just have that staff sit up top and make sure that everyone is walking where they need to walk and being able to access the downtown,” he said. “But during construction, we haven’t had anybody coming up, standing there saying, where do I go? There hasn’t been any of that issue. They come, they pay at the kiosk and they walk straight back up again to the White Buffalo staircase. So it hasn’t been anyone congregating around not knowing exactly what’s going on. Have had a lot of people on Elm Street looking in, but not anybody standing up on the top.”