Staples Street Extension in OOB may become off limits to vehicles in summer

OLD ORCHARD BEACH — The owner of Palace Playland and the town are negotiating a plan that would prohibit standard vehicular access to Staples Street Extension during the summer.

Staples Street Extension is a short dead end street that runs from the beach to West Grand Avenue, through the center of Palace Playland amusement park. The amusement park owners and staff have expressed safety concerns regarding near misses that happen as pedestrians cross the street to get to one side of the park to the other with vehicles dropping people off at the beach and turning around in the congested area.

The town had previously proposed a land swap which would have moved Staples Street Extension to property at the southern border of the park and handed over to the park the town property where the street is currently located. After some research town officials decided that this was not feasible due to storm water infrastructure under the street.

Palace Playland owner Joel Golder and members of the Town Council discussed a plan at a workshop Tuesday night that would close off vehicular traffic to Staples Street Extension in the summer.

Town Manager Larry Mead said the street is a tight space for drivers who need to turn around to get into one of the eight parking spaces or leave after dropping someone off at the beach.

“It doesn’t have sufficient space to really do a U-turn on the street to reverse direction. So that means vehicles are doing a three-point turn to reverse direction,” he said.

Golder’s original plan was, if the town closed the street off to pedestrian and vehicular traffic, he would give the town eight handicapped spaces on Palace Playland property to replace the eight spaces handicapped spaces that were lost. If the town would close the street to just vehicles he was willing to give the town four handicapped spaces.

Although no vote was taken, a plan was agreed upon that would close the street off to vehicular traffic seasonally. Kiosks could be placed in the street, as long as space remained for emergency, town and utility vehicles to enter the street if need be. The amusement park would give the town six parking spaces parallel to West Grand Avenue for handicapped use, and there would be a pedestrian opening next to the gate. Town lifeguards would use a different entrance to gather on the beach before their shift.

As the council negotiated with Golder, councilor Kenneth Blow said he wanted to make sure the town wasn’t giving more than it was getting, and wanted to make sure the agreement benefitted the town, the park and other businesses as well as tourists and residents.

Councilor Shawn O’Neill the traffic safety issues were happening on the town-owned street.

“I don’t think in theory, Palace Playland has to forfeit anything. It’s a town issue. It’s a town street,” said O’Neill.

The town will come up with a more formal version of the agreed upon plan, which will likely be put in place next year.

Publisher Liz Gotthelf can be reached at [email protected].