Ambitious Groveland Plans Include Fiber, Dog Park and Public Art

New infrastructure, a dog park and public art are among the items on the Groveland town administrator’s agenda.Town Administrator Rebecca Oldham, a recent guest on WHAV’s morning program, talked about the Uptack Road Culvert Replacement Project, plans to bring in fiber connecting Groveland Town Hall with the Public Safety Building and Langley-Adams Library, a $25,000 grant from the Stanton Foundation to develop plans for a new dog park and a state Shared Streets grant resulting in a mural being painted on Main Street.“The intent is that there is essentially that there is a crucial connection in front of the Stark & Cronk Building that does not have sidewalks and we wanted to provide a connection so that people could safely get from the existing sidewalk over to the sidewalk on Main Street along the river. This was a fun and playful way to acknowledge where that connection could be, and where it should be, and potentially lead to a more permanent sidewalk installation to show just how crucial that connection is,” Oldham said.Oldham also discussed the expanded bus service to Groveland by the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority. It brings transportation to the library, town hall and Groveland Housing Authority“It’s nice to see the public transportation come this way. We were heavy users of the Ring and Ride services that are provided by the MVRTA. We were one of the communities with the highest use numbers. So, this was really common sense when we saw it, just getting right over the bridge,” she said.Another recent WHAV morning show guest was MVRTA Administrator Noah S. Berger. He credited Oldham with helping to bring bus service to the town by making a slight route adjustment.“But one of the things in straightening out the Route 18 bus that used to stop at the plaza is Riverside is it bought some time to jump over the bridge and go to Groveland, which folks there have been asking for a number of years. They could see it, just over the bridge, but weren’t able to get there. So, that’s been a great new opportunity for us, serve a new community and really connect the Merrimack Valley in the ways we were designed to do,” he said.Oldham also said that work is continuing on putting information together from a recent series of community forums that will eventually become Groveland’s master plan.Support the show