After two recent meetings, Mayor Joe D’Onofrio is more confident than he’s ever previously been that the village may be able to one day soon remove utility poles from at least part of Main St.
“We’ve had two meetings recently, and after the first one I didn’t think it could happen,” the mayor said last week. “But then we had another, and with a plan our engineer, Todd Atkinson, has come up with, we may just be able to do it.”
That first meeting was hosted by Rick Minicozzi, who is working to build a hotel on Main St. in the current location of the former Pentagon Federal Credit Union.
For decades it’s been said in studies and revitalization reports that the wires on Main St. should be buried underground to make the business district more attractive. That’s most likely not going to happen because of the extreme expense, D’Onofrio said, and because the village just redid its Main St. sidewalks and street in 2019.
But, what Orange & Rockland’s Electric’s engineers are now looking at is a plan to run the wiring to Main St. from the poles on residential streets behind north-end Main St. shops.
“The electricity and other utilities would come into the stores from the back side instead of the front,” D’Onofrio said.
They are looking at the area from Thayer Gate to about Holy Innocents Church,” D’Onofrio said, using existing poles and relocating some poles on Homestead, Drew and Parry Avenues and Church St.
The village has asked Assemblyman Colin Schmitt to get involved, because there will be some funding needed for the project.
