FARMINGTON — Selectmen reviewed draft plans for a sidewalk improvement project that will begin this fall along U.S. Route 2/27 and Route 4.

The project will connect existing sidewalks at the intersection of Prescott Street and Main Street to existing sidewalks along Farmington Falls Road allowing for safer pedestrian access to Hippach Field, which is located on the corner of Farmington Falls Road and Main Street.

“There’s presently a well worn path (in that location); now this project serves to formalize that,” Town Manager Richard Davis said at the selectmen’s meeting Tuesday night.

The $100,000 project has been in the works since 2014, when the town of Farmington received Federal Highway Administration funding for a new sidewalk and pedestrian safety improvements in the Hippach Field area. Eighty percent of the funding is administered through the Maine Department of Transportation, and the town will be contributing a 20-percent match, which Davis said the town has set aside in a reserve account.

In 2015, Farmington selected Wright-Pierce Engineers to develop the design plans for the project and at their meeting Tuesday night Travis Pryor, of Wright-Pierce Engineers, presented selectmen with the preliminary designs for the project.

Presently there is no sidewalk on Farmington Falls Road from Maple Street to the intersection with Main Street that would lead from the area of the Town Office to Hippach Field. However, there is clearly a need for a sidewalk there, Davis asserts, because pedestrians walk that route so often that there is a dirt path worn in the grass.

The project will establish a 5-foot wide sidewalk beginning where the Farmignton Falls sidewalk ends at Maple Street, down the hill toward Main Street and then leading to the right of the intersection toward Hippach Field.

Once the sidewalk meets the Hippach Field fence, it will curve away from the street and into the grassy area of Hippach Field. There it will continue in front of the grandstand and to the parking lot where a new crosswalk will be established. On the other side of the crosswalk, the sidewalk will continue through a grassy and landscaped area at the corner of Hippach Field to Prescott Street, where a crosswalk will connect it with an existing crosswalk on the other side.

Final design plans will be completed next month, and bids for the project are anticipated to go out in July. If the project stays on track, construction should begin in September so the project can be completed before winter.

Lauren Abbate — 861-9252

labbate@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @Lauren_M_Abbate

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