Grant would help fund upgrades to park in High Falls
MARBLETOWN, N.Y. » Town Supervisor Rich Parete is optimistic about getting a $125,000 grant from the state for improvements to Grady Park along state Route 213 in the hamlet of High Falls.
Parete said this week that the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed the process of getting financial aid from New York’s Municipal Facilities Program.
“It’s not too bad of a process, but with COVID, a slow process got even slower,” he said. “There’s still uncertainty with the finances of the state, but yet everything is not as bad as we thought it might be last March, April and May.”
The grant application was submitted in November 2020, about a year after town officials signed a 99-year lease for the 1.84acre property with the D&H Canal Historical Society. The site — which has been used in the past for weekend flea markets — is across from a popular area for fishing and swimming in the Rondout Creek.
“We want to put a sidewalk in and a crosswalk,” Parete said.
The entire project is expected to cost about $1.2 million and, according to the grant application, would “include a community gathering space ... [with] ADA-compliant pathways, landscaping, benches, picnic areas, lighting, as well as on-street parking and improvements to the existing shared municipal parking area, [which] serves the existing neighboring local food co-op, the post office, local eateries and other nearby businesses.”
The project also will “preserve historic features and provide a historical educational component for the remains of two D&H Canal locks” at the site, the application states.
The town’s plan also calls for connecting the park to the planned D&H Historical Society Canal Museum & Visitors Center that aims to open in 2022, the High Falls Conservancy Creek Walk and the Five-Locks Walk that connects to the 27-mile O&W Rail Trail.