LYNN – An $800,000 renovation project on Mt. Vernon Street could eventually provide a new home for the city’s downtown farmer’s market, allowing vendors to set up shop on a more permanent basis.
Community Development Project Director Michael Murray said Thursday that work on improving the aesthetically struggling area of the city is moving forward on schedule as city officials debate what to do with the larger area of open space that was created by bumping out the sidewalk near the corners of Mt. Vernon and Exchange streets, along with a series of bays below the elevated commuter rail tracks.Contractors this week are working to reset the street’s new curb line, which now extends well into a portion of the street once used as a bus stop and parking area.Murray said the new chunk of space will be a large, concrete sidewalk that could feature a large tree and serve as a new home to the farmers market usually held on Thursdays across the street next to Lynn Arts.The MBTA bus stop in front of the commuter rail tracks has been eliminated.”The bump will be a concrete sidewalk. We are discussing a few different options for that area, one of which is adding a very large tree on the corner,” said Murray. “Part of the reason for that is we are in the initial stages of designing something in the bays below the commuter rail tracks, possibly a new home for the farmer’s market, possibly something that would be there more often than every Thursday.”The renovation project will bring a fresh sidewalk, new street lights and a line of street trees to Mt. Vernon Street, along with a series of angled parking spaces on the side of the one-way side street closest to Silsbee Street and the railroad tracks.Murray said workers are setting the new curb line and installing bases for light posts this week and hope to begin pouring the new sidewalk over the next two to three weeks.If all goes well the new street light poles will be installed by June and the project should be completed by July.The curb bump at the Exchange Street intersection is larger than many residents may have anticipated, something that Murray said was done by design to prevent commuters from leaving their cars on the street all day while they take the train into Boston.”The parking is determined by the parking department, but we have talked about angled spaces all along the railroad side of the street and I know some of the businesses on Mt. Vernon Street have asked for 30 minute or 1 hour parking in front of their stores,” he said.A large part of the restoration project will be to find some use for the bays beneath the railroad tracks, which have been largely neglected in recent years.Murray said the city has leased the bays and are in the process of determining how to utilize them with space for the farmer’s market and possibly Lynn Arts displays high on the list of possibilities.”There is not a definite plan for that yet,” he said. “But it is possible that Lynn Arts would go down there and display some of the work they do over there.”Murray did say a plan to open up some of the bays as a makeshift parking garage was scrapped when designers determined there is not enough space for such a project.
