Curran: Long Beach and six other Nassau communities to each receive $150,000 in downtown re-development funds

Seven Nassau communities, including Long Beach, will each receive $150,000 in federal funds to re-make the faces of their downtowns from humdrum storefronts and streets to places highlighted by bicycle paths, walkways, better lighting, affordable housing and parking spaces, County Executive Laura Curran announced Friday.

At a press conference at Kennedy Plaza in Long Beach, Curran she had orchestrated a program to obtain $1 million in funding for the seven communities that she said were “the winners” of Nassau’s first Transit-Oriented Development funding competition. The funds, Curran said, are from the federal Community Development Block Grant, obtained with the help of the county’s Office of Community Development.

More communities will be selected for similar grants next year.

“We hope with this downtown revitalization, our businesses get a boost,” Curran said at the press conference, outside Long Beach City Hall. Long Beach, she said, “is the place where the cool kids want to be” because of its beaches and boardwalks and restaurants. “We’re working very hard to keep Long Beach attractive to young people and seniors alike. We want young people to stay here, but all too often they leave. They can’t afford a place (in Nassau) or the places just aren’t much fun.”

In Long Beach, plans call for bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. Most of the work in Long Beach will be at the city’s major downtown around the Long Island Railroad station and the NICE bus terminal. Plans also include construction of a rain garden in front of the LIRR office with a seating area, educational signage regarding green infrastructure, an art mural. Landscaping is also to be installed to “decrease visual blight of an LIRR chain link fence at the edge of a lower-income neighborhood,” according to a county press release.

Long Beach acting city manager John Mirando said the city is “thrilled to be awarded” the $150,000 and that work will begin soon.

Nassau Legis. Denise Ford, a Democrat from Long Beach, said “Everywhere I go, people tell me one or two of their children want to move to Long Beach. This money is going to make Long Beach even more attractive.”

Other than Long Beach, funds will go to North Hempstead, Hempstead Village, Oyster Bay Town, Farmingdale village, Freeport village and Hempstead town.