The Incorporated Village of Farmingdale is moving forward with the third chapter of ongoing downtown revitalization efforts, a plan which entails new sidewalks for the commercial area of Conklin Street, Village Clerk-Treasurer John Giordano said this week.

The project, which is being funded by a state grant, will cover a small segment of the major thoroughfare in the vicinity of Main Street. Mirroring the improvements already made to Main Street, the refurbished pedestrian walkways will feature the red bricks commonly used in downtown revitalizations.

"We plan to start phase three with our downtown revitalization. It's going to extend on Conklin Street, and any day now, the contractor should start working," said Giordano. "We would like to let everybody know that the contractor will guarantee access to all stores on Conklin Street. There will be a slight inconvenience during construction, but no one is going to lose access to the buildings."

Giordano expects the $80,000 project, which involves 5,000 square feet of the sidewalks, to be completed within 6 weeks.

Vito Logiudice, project manager for Garden City Park-based ASV/Benny Construction, the company handling the building, gave the same time estimate. However, he added that the weather will obviously be a factor and that he does not have an exact start date.

Asked whether the work will impact parking in the immediate shopping area, Logiudice responded, "We're just going to remove parking spots where we have to - nothing more."

"We try to accommodate all the business owners and the merchants and the pedestrians as much as we can," he added. "Whenever there's construction work, there should always be pedestrian awareness. We have safety and traffic maintenance there, to help move traffic along as we're working. And, as far as the merchants, we will try to keep them up and running as much as we can with minimal inconvenience."

The project is part of the revitalization efforts initiated by Farmingdale Village five years ago, such as adding new brick sidewalks, ornamental lighting and a pedestrian plaza to Main Street, and facilitating access from Main Street to the municipal parking lots behind its shops. Those enhancements were funded by a combination of federal, state and county community development grants.

According to Giordano, the improvements to the commercial area of Conklin are aimed at complementing that ongoing process.

"It fits in like a puzzle piece. It's consistent with our incremental plan to improve the community. It can't all be done in one year. It's done over a time period," he said. "We have people coming back into the village who haven't been here in five years. And, we keep hearing over and over how things have changed for the better."

Conklin Street may see more changes further down the road, if another village proposal is successful. The municipality recently finished compiling an application for federal transportation funds to install new brick sidewalks, ornamental street lighting and trees in other areas of the street - improvements aimed at making the high traffic route more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly. The grant for this and a related project, which proposes building a bicycle rest station at the corner of Main Street and Melville Road, is being sought under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). Signed into law by President Clinton on June 9, 1998, the measure supports the integration of bicycling and walking into the transportation mainstream. The federal grant is being sought to fund 78 percent of the proposed joint project, which is estimated to cost about $375 thousand.