CLINTON HILL — Plans for a pedestrian plaza on Myrtle Avenue — complete with seating, lighting, drinking fountains and public art — have been pushed back until summer due to glitches in the bidding process, officials said.
This isn't the first hold up for the 25,000-square-foot, $6 million pedestrian mall, between Grand Avenue and Emerson Place, which was championed by the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership and paid for with city and federal grants.
Construction on the plaza, which also includes new signaled crossings, an expanded center median and the consolidation of bus stops, was initially expected to be complete in August 2013 but the public art component of the plaza was held up by Public Design Commission approval, according to Brownstoner.
In this case there has been trouble securing a contractor.
"There were some minor delays in the procurement process...today we received one of the approvals needed to move forward," Department of Design and Construction spokesman Craig Chin said on March 24. "We’ll look to make up any time lost during the construction of the plaza."
Chin said construction was set to begin this summer and is scheduled to take one year to complete.
Work on the initial stages of the project has begun with National Grid currently installing a new gas line in the sidewalks, according to the Partnership.
The Partnership hopes that the space, once completed, will serve as a community meeting space.
"The plaza will finally give us the opportunity to hold those outdoor community events, like tree lightings, which local businesses have been wanting for years," Michael Blaise Backer, director of the Partnership, told Crain's New York in a recent interview.
