LIVERMORE FALLS — No applications have been received so far for the remaining $1,235 of a grant to improve the fronts of downtown businesses.

Town Manager Kristal Flagg told selectmen she has advertised that applications are available.

A business would have to match the grant amount it received.

The town received a $150,000 Community Block Grant several years ago to help improve the looks of their buildings facing the street. Overall, about $190,000 was invested to improve the facades of businesses, including about $95,000 in grant money. About $31,000 was spent on architectural, engineering and administrative services. The remaining money not used for the projects went to buy benches, bike racks, signs, cement trash containers and other items to beautify the downtown. The bike racks have yet to be installed.

The $1,235 was returned in grant funds in September after a portion of a building, which grant money was used on, was sold within three years of the grant being issued.

Flagg also informed selectmen that she and highway foreman Bill Nichols met with Jeff Preble of Wright-Pierce, the firm that did the engineering work for the first section of the bike/walk path on Foundry Road.

Initially the path was intended to go from behind the municipal building down Foundry Road to routes 17/133 at Shuy Corner. However, by the time the project was to be done the price rose and only a portion of the work could be done, Flagg said.

A federal and state grant paid for the bulk of the existing three-quarter mile trail that cost about $223,000. Livermore Falls was responsible for 20 percent of it, or about $44,000. It opened in 2009.

In May of this year, town officials were notified that the town was awarded a $16,000 grant for planning and engineering work to extend the trail south to the end of Foundry Road to Shuy Corner at the intersections of routes 17 and 133 and back up those roads to a town turn-around, also known locally as the town’s snow dump.

This portion of the trail would include building a sidewalk along routes 17 and 133 where there is none. There are sidewalks from there that lead to the Livermore Falls athletic fields and school.

Flagg said it shouldn’t take much to design a plan to extend the path. The town would be responsible for about $3,300 for the design and planning work, she said previously. The board voted at an earlier meeting to authorize Flagg to continue pursuing work on the extension plan. Former Town Manager Jim Chaousis applied for the grant.

The Foundry Road is the widest road in town at 60 feet, Flagg said. The only obstacle may be the railroad tracks and the state has said it would help the town with that, if necessary, she said.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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