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10/11/2016 12:20 PMThe second round of Small Town Economic Assistance Program (STEAP) grants were recently awarded to 16 towns by the State of Connecticut. The STEAP grants are earmarked for capital improvement projects. North Haven received a $400,000 grant for its plan to refurbish its Central Block area.
“It was a pleasant surprise,” said First Selectman Mike Freda. “We’re looking to make it more pedestrian-friendly and safer, as well as improve traffic flow.”
The Central Block Area covers a 0.54-mile square, going from Church Street to Linsley, across Elm to Broadway. Many of the town’s government buildings, including Town Hall, the Police Department, the Board of Education offices, Parks & Recreation, the library, a Fire Department, and the Annex, are located within the Central Block Area.
With so many town buildings in that area, the goal of this plan is to improve its parking areas, traffic flow, streetscaping, landscaping, and sidewalk configurations.
“Members of the Police Department regularly traverse this square, as do town employees and residents,” said Freda. “Now we’ll go out to competitive bid and hire a consultant. Our goal is not to spend beyond what we’ve been issued in the grant.”
This round of STEAP grants ranged from $120,000 to $500,000, totaling nearly $6 million awarded to 16 towns. This is the second round of STEAP grants awarded in 2016, with the first being awarded in February.
“By partnering with our smaller communities, our state can assist towns with infrastructure projects that will help them grow, remain competitive, attract businesses, and bring added value to residents for years to come,” Governor Dannel Malloy stated in a press release. “These STEAP grants allow us to get funding directly to municipalities to complete projects that make Connecticut a better place to work and live.”
The Town of North Haven applies for several grants each year and had applied for a $500,000 STEAP grant for this project. It also applied for a grant for the Green Acres Elementary School playground, which was not awarded at this time.
“We apply for a bunch of different grants and this is what they gave us,” said Freda. “We would have loved to get that, but we are working with the playground group [at the school] to see if we could get that done, too.”