Khaki & Black, All Stores Open While Test Sidewalk Under Construction

Khaki & Black and all other downtown stores in Madison are open while the town builds a demo sidewalk to help town officials and volunteers with the downtown beautification project determine details like the perfect shade of the stone pavers.

The volunteers on this project and town officials have spent many years on the details and on obtaining funding for it.

After the test sidewalk is done, town residents are welcome to give their opinion by stopping in and talking with Joel Stander, the Khaki & Black owner, who is also the downtown liaison for the project. The video shows construction underway on Tuesday, while Joel serves a customer inside his clothing and specialty good stores.

Madison Center Project many years in the making

Madison Earth Care, which is doing the construction on the test sidewalk, estimates it will be done by next Friday.

The downtown beautification project, also known as the Madison Center Project, has been developed for more than 13 years by a committee of dedicated and tenacious volunteers, including four who have passed away while the project has been under development. 

Pam McKinnon, the chair of the committee, has said there have been some frustrating delays, but that some were inevitable given the complexity of the project. It has required the coordination of the town, numerous downtown merchants, CL&P and other utility providers, along with decisions about a myriad of details ranging from paver stones to electrical upgrades. 

Project funded by some town money, several grants

Many of the buildings downtown, since they are older, will require electrical upgrades as part of the project. After several debates about the best way to pay for that--out of project funds or by the merchants themselves--the Board of Selectmen voted in September that the Downtown Beautification Fund should absorb the cost of individual electrical  hookups not to exceed $75,000. 

The funding history of the project is as follows: 

October 2002: $500,000 STEAP Grant
Town of Madison 03-04 Budget: $60,000 in town funds
Town of Madison 04-05 Budget: $71,400 in town funds
August 2008: $250,000 Urban Action Grant
September 2009: $200,000 STEAP Grant
May 2011: $400,000 STEAP Grant
November 2012: $500,000 STEAP Grant

For a total of $1,981,000 so far. 

Expenditures and credits to date are as follows: 

AT&T: $189.29
AT&T: 189.29
AT&T: $44,003.35
AT&T: ($14,878.00) (reimbursement)
CL&P: $211,216.17
Comcast: $36,096.14
Fibertech Networks LLC: $38,983.90
Gesick & Associates, P.C.: $7,000
Iselin Tree Experts, LLC: $1,200.00
Madison Foundation: ($4000.00)
Milone & MacBroom, Inc.: $44,437.50
Wausau Tile, Inc.: $4,734
Williams Stone Co. Inc.: $2,018.94

For a total of $371,190.58 

Leaving a balance of $1,610,209.42, prior to the construction of the test sidewalks, which will require additional expenditures. 

"It will make us more of a destination"

The Madison Center Project committee is made up of numerous volunteers who are interested in the health of the downtown center, including Pam McKinnon, Eileen Banisch, Ryan Duques, Gunnar Johnson, Gail Fearon, Lori Walz, and Joel Stander. 

McKinnon said she is optimistic that the project will, when done, make Madison a more appealing place to do business, to go to the movies, to shop and to visit. "It will make us more of a destination," she said, adding that the town is interested in doing whatever it can to support the downtown merchants, many of whom still struggle to thrive as the economy recovers. 

Duques agreed. "It's a once in a multi-generation opportunity to enhance our downtown aesthetics," he said. 

Working to keep disruption to merchants, pedestrians to a minimum

The project includes burying utility lines so that there will be no poles and no unsightly wires. The sidewalks will be redone. There will be street furniture. Trees will be planted. There will be bike racks. Parking will remain on an angle, as it is now, but the median strip will be redone with new pavers and planters, and extended further towards Route 79. The plantings on the median will be done in six-foot long planters. There will be water hookups on the median, to make it easier to maintain the plantings, along with electrical hookups, to make it easier to do things like light up the Christmas trees. 

McKinnon said she is anxious to get the project completed. She said that coordinating the utility services was a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating process. As construction work on the utilities started on the south side of the street, it was sometimes interrupted by problems, including the weather. "It was difficult anyway, and then throw a couple of storms in there," she said. 

As the project moves into the construction phase, McKinnon said her hope is that the town and the contractors can minimize any disruption to the downtown merchants who will remain open during construction. "We will work diligently to keep the disruption to merchants, and to pedestrian traffic, to a minimum," she said. 

"I love this town"

The committee that she chairs has served as a clearinghouse for numerous decisions from large to small.

There have been heated and prolonged discussions involving dozens of people about what, exactly, the shade of the paving stones should be, for example. While sometimes frustrating and time consuming, McKinnon said those who are working on the project are united by one goal, to make Madison's beautiful downtown even better. 

"I hope to see it done, and done soon," she said. "I love this town.