If you have ever tried to go look at the World War II memorial at Memorial Plaza, you may have found it difficult to get to the area surrounded by roadways. However, due to a proposed improvement project, the memorial may no longer be so difficult to get to.
At the Pleasantville Village Board meeting on September 25th, Phil Myrick, the Director of Planning for MIG, a planning and design firm, and Jamie Maslyn Larson, a landscape architect from Wagner Hodgson, presented a plan to the board to revitalize Memorial Plaza. Part of the plan is to create a park at the northern end of Memorial Plaza and remove the right turning road that leads onto Manville Road. The project would allow for a public space where the Village of Pleasantville would be able to organize different events, and residents and visitors would be able to relax.
Myrick and Larson’s plan includes three separate tasks. The first is to figure out what the residents and business owners of Pleasantville want to be included in the park by holding public input meetings. The following task would be to come up with a design, figure out how much money will need to be spent, and how long the project may take. The final step would be to put everything together and begin construction. Myrick and Larson believe that the whole process would take around nine months.
As with many changes that are proposed in Pleasantville, there may be some objections from residents. Colleen Griffin Wagner, a trustee on the board, said that, “people are just uncomfortable with change.”
Despite this concern, Mayor Peter Scherer said that the improvement project is “a very exciting opportunity,” and one that he and the board members are “anxious to make right.”