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Tupper Lake festival celebrates street renovation

Park Street will be the location of the Tupper Lake street festival where residents and tourists will celebrate the road’s new look. (Photo courtesy of ROOST)

TUPPER LAKE — As the Tupper Lake Art Show is in full swing on Saturday, Park Street will be closed off for a festival showing off the main road’s new look.

The festival will feature the best Tupper Lake and the art show have to offer. Farm-to-market vendors, live music, games, wine and beer tasting, and art from the show will fill the newly renovated street.

“I hope they see the new restaurants, the two breweries, the excitement that is going on in Tupper Lake with the observatory, with the Wild Center, and it will pique their interest,” Mayor Paul Maroun said.

From Spring 2015 to Fall 2016, the state Department of Transportation reconstructed Wawbeek Avenue and Park Street from Mercy Living Center to McLaughlin Avenue. Adding new lights, trees, seats, sidewalks and flowers along with pavement and underground infrastructure.

“A lot of the things you see are beautiful, but the things you don’t see are great for the taxpayers,” Maroun said.

New water, sewer and drain lines help everything flowing under Tupper Lake’s streets move faster and stay below the surface. Sidewalks were widened and streets narrowed to allow for excess snow to be piled up out of the way.

The state owns the roads – they’re part of Route 30 – and mostly paid for the $16.2 million construction project.

“The only thing the village taxpayers paid for in this project were improvements and upgrades,” Maroun said.

When sewer pipes needed to be upgraded from 10 to 12 inches in diameter, residents paid the difference for the 2-inch increase instead of the whole pipeline cost.

The light poles lining the street are also more expensive than the base model. Their energy-efficient bulbs reduce light pollution which helps stargazers at the Tupper Lake Public Observatory. Upgrades the village taxpayers paid for total approximately half a million dollars.

While the uptown road is being celebrated, Maroun is also praising a rail-trail project downtown that he once opposed. The state plans to remove 34 miles of tracks between Tupper Lake and Lake Placid, replacing them with a trail, and upgrade the 45 miles of tracks south from Tupper Lake to Big Moose.

“That’s going to be the new hub of activity, because the rail from Utica is going to end there and the trail to Placid is going to start there,” Maroun said.

With the state awarding $2 million toward a proposed 40-room hotel at the corner of state Routes 3 and 30 – down the street from the festival — the mayor hopes to also bring a general merchandise store to the village, expanding its tourist and resident appeal.

Tupper Lake has been on a long road to get where it is today. On Saturday, people from around the area will celebrate that road, and the newly paved Park Street as well.

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