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Don’t expect downtown Northampton to look the same over the next 48 hours.
The city of Northampton has shut down traffic in the heart of the community’s business district as workers remodel Main Street in efforts to improve the downtown shopping experience during the coronavirus pandemic.
The remodeling is the result of a nearly $200,000 grant awarded to the city by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation earlier this month. Officials are expected to use the money to enhance the upper half of Main Street.
Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz told MassLive last week the city’s work to remodel much of Main Street “is a very specific response to COVID-19.”
“The pandemic has created this economic situation that has really forced us to act quickly to reallocate space, because we’re trying to create more outdoor seating capacity for restaurants,” he said.
The project will be installed between Thursday and Saturday on Main Street between King and Pleasant streets as well as New South Street.
All traffic on Main Street was closed at 6 a.m. on Thursday and will reopen Friday. A parking ban was put into effect earlier Thursday morning and will last until 4 p.m. on Friday.
The $199,800 is from the MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces program, which was launched in response to current public health crisis to support safe mobility and renewed commerce in communities.
The program provides cities and towns with grants as small as $5,000 and as large as $300,000 to improve sidewalks, curbs, streets, on-street parking spaces and off-street parking lots to support bolster both public health and business.
MassDOT, which has put $5 million into 100-day program, has noted that grant applications will be accepted until Sept. 29.
“The overarching goal, and this was part of the reason MassDOT set up this Shared Spaces grant program, was recognizing that many communities now are scrambling to reconfigure outdoor space and roadways and set up outdoor dining for supporting economic recovery,” Narkewicz said.
In Northampton, the state funds will be put to use to expand communal spaces for socially distanced walking, biking, shopping and dining in the business district.
By the time the project is complete by weekend’s end, the city’s downtown will be littered with temporary materials, including roughly 100 planters for flowers, street murals produced by artists in the area and concrete barriers used to designate the expanded public space.
A designated bike lane and a new bus stop configuration is also expected to be set up at the Hampshire County Courthouse with the aim of speeding up traffic and reducing collisions, according to officials.
The four local artists charged with painting the new shared street space are Andrae Green, Eben Kling, Kim Carlino and Sean Greene. Painting, planting and other final work is expected to wrap up Saturday.
The upper Main Street redesign comes nearly three months after the city received a private $10,000 grant from the Lawrence & Lillian Solomon Foundation to encourage outdoor dining and easy curbside purchases on Main Street in Northampton and Florence that abide by social distancing practices.
In June, Northampton rolled out its first efforts to make lower Main Street a safe destination for retailers to open their doors again and shoppers to venture downtown. The main goal was to aid the reopening process for many of the struggling businesses in the community’s most popular dining and shopping areas.
Similar to what is expected from the enhancements currently underway on upper Main Street, outdoor dining areas were set up earlier this summer using parking spaces on the lower section of the street, and concrete barriers were erected that have since been colorfully decorated.
The foundation’s money allowed for less congested sidewalks and easy parking, the mayor noted, adding that the public response to the newly reconfigured lower Main Street has been largely positive.
“I think [it] has been very well-received and has been, I would say, successful, just judging by the vibrancy of when you go down through that part of lower Main Street,” Narkewicz said. “There’s outdoor dining in multiple restaurants that are utilizing it, and our local artists stepped in and decorated the barriers, not just on lower Main, but Pleasant Street and other areas well.”
On the current work to enhance the upper half of the street, the mayor said, “This is a continuation of that, and really, it’s to address the rest of Main Street, the big middle section as well as up near the Pulaski Park area.”
“It’s again an effort to create more public space, shared space for more outdoor seating. It also addresses some social distancing needs by creating more public space for pedestrians as well as for cyclists,” Narkewicz said. “That’s sort of the overall vision, but it all ties back to this idea of wanting to support downtown retailers.”
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