LAKE PLACID — The process of overhauling Lake Placid’s Main Street is slated to move forward in the next few weeks.

The village plans to solicit bids for its projected $8 million streetscape and infrastructure improvement project sometime in June, Village Mayor Craig Randall said during the board of trustees’ regular meeting last week. He said last month that the plan was to ultimately award the project to a contractor later in the summer, then move toward construction in September.

While other municipalities cancel or temporarily suspend capital projects amid financial uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, the village is able to move forward with its Main Street project because state grants awarded for this project were issued years ago, in 2016 and 2017, according to Randall.

The Main Street overhaul, which has been years in the making, is designed to rebuild aging water infrastructure so it can support increased use as a result of changing fire codes. Village officials also say it’s an opportunity to upgrade the streetscape with new sidewalks, landscaping and crosswalks; and see it as a step forward in the ongoing effort to protect Mirror Lake from salt contamination with the installation of bioretention basins designed to capture and filter some stormwater before it enters the lake.

A public meeting, where the broader community would be able to provide input on the proposed designs, has not yet been held for this project. Meetings have been scheduled and rescheduled multiple times as the designs were altered, or members of the Main Street taskforce — a volunteer committee tasked with offering input on the project — sought more time to fine-tune visual renderings of the streetscape designs. The latest meeting in March was ultimately canceled due to concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“We may not get back, for the foreseeable future, to what is referred to today as a ‘gathering,'” Randall said.

Asked if the village still intends to solicit public input on the project before it goes out to bid, Randall said yes.

For both the Main Street project, and a separate project involving the upper municipal lot across from NBT Bank, the village is exploring the idea of putting up conceptual designs on empty Main Street storefronts for people to see as they walk by, and encouraging feedback that way, according to Randall.