BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM — The village is seeking town support for mounting new street lights on the side of the historic town courthouse during an upcoming renovation of Raymond Street.

Village Planning and Development Director Fred Hanss made the pitch to the town board at their meeting Dec. 12.

The village is using about $4.5 million of its $10 million DRI award it received in 2019 to renovate the downtown streetscape.

"When I say renovate, I mean a total makeover," Hanss told the town board. "Not much has happened in that section, a National register district, since I was in college in the early 1980s."

Part of that project will involve a restructuring along Raymond Street, complete with a new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant sidewalk on the north side of the street which runs along the bookstore, the Creative Spirit Arts Center and the North Country Children's Museum.

Hanss told the board that the work will involve widening the sidewalk to almost six feet wide to improve wheelchair access.

While initial design ideas were calling to make the roadway a one-way street to provide more room for the wider walk, the public balked at the idea and wanted Raymond to remain a two-way roadway, Hanss said.

The alternative solution, he said, was to narrow the sidewalk on the street's south side which runs along the town courthouse to one or two feet. The remaining space freed up on the north side of the street will be wide enough for an ADA walk. However, not enough room will remain to install street lights there.

Hanss said the remaining option is to mount street lights to the side of the courthouse instead on the street's north side.

He said he was coming before the town board to garner support for the idea.

Raymond Street is a key piece to the village's downtown streetscape project and its Riverwalk Trail project, connecting them both.

Hanss said the children's museum and arts center will be a draw for visitors and residents, and the wider, six-foot walkway that is planned will facilitate pedestrian travel to those spots from parking locations downtown and near the Market Square Mall. "And, we want mother's with strollers, and people with wheelchairs to be able to safely get down to those destinations," Hanss said.

"The sacrifice we have to make there, is there really is no place in the roadway to place the streetlights," Hanss said. Hanss said if the village installed the streetlights in the sidewalks, they would no longer be ADA compliant.

Hanss said the project designers from LaBella Associates have suggested installing wall mounted street lights on the village water treatment plant and on the town courthouse.

The planner told the town board that the streetlights would be owned by the village and the village would be responsible for paying for the electricity.

Hanss said probably the easiest way to mount the lights on the courthouse would be to run conduit on the side of the building. He said since the courthouse is on the National Historical Register, the village would have to consult with the state Office of Historic Preservation on the best way to handle the installation.

The planner asked the town board for some sort of written document of support for the idea, which will ultimately be reviewed by the state. Francis P. Cappello suggested that the town could create some sort of easement document to facilitate the installation and housing for the lights. "You tell me what you need and we can make it work," the attorney said.

There was some discussion about how the conduit would be used to mount the lights. Hanss said the idea of using the conduit was to avoid drilling into the building.

Outgoing Town Supervisor Ann Carvill said she did have a safety concern about the idea of a narrow walk on the south side of Raymond. Hanss said that the project is currently in the design process but the landscape designer is suggesting ideas to enhance the safety there. The final design will be worked out in January, he said.

"The only thing I can see ... is that I don't want to see conduit going up the side of the building," said incoming Town Supervisor Marty Miller. "If we can do penetrations in the wall to actually mount those lights, I think it would be the best thing. It would certainly look better."

Miller said it looks cheap to run conduit down a historic building like the courthouse.