Mayor: Elm Street will remain regular street, closing for special events

Chronicle Managing Editor Cathy DeDe writes: We’ve been hearing from downtown businesses and community members with an interest and concern about the future of Elm Street north of South Street.

It’s been closed to traffic as Bonacio Development builds its Phase 2 five-story apartment building where the Farmers Market and South Street parking lot used to be.

This past spring, Glens Falls approved another Bonacio extension request to keep Elm closed, but on weekdays only.

Bonacio has been removing its traffic-stopping fences on weekends.

Rumors abound that the City aims to close Elm to vehicles permanently, or maybe regularly on weekends.

Mayor Diana Palmer tells The Chronicle, “That is going to be a regular street that’s open, but it will have the ability to be closed off for special events.”

She said, “The idea was always, when there was an event at the ED with the Farmers Market, they could be moved to the street, and Elm was identified as the street for occasional closure” to accommodate that.

“That got started back when they were doing all the planning,” for the $10 million New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant that helped fund or leverage The Ed and other South Street projects.

Mayor Palmer said she brought the Elm Street question to the June Board of Public Safety meeting and asked: “Do we want this to be a permanent pedestrian street? Do we want this to be able to be closed off sometimes?

“The consensus in the discussion was, let’s see how it goes with closing it off sometimes, and that was where we left it,” Mayor Palmer said.

She said she charged City Development Director Jeff Flagg with contacting nearby businesses for thoughts on the issue.

“As you probably know, I like to get input from people and just say, ‘how would you feel about this?”

Mayor Palmer says, “I think that we had a couple people who weren’t crazy about it being permanently closed. I don’t believe anybody had a problem with it being closed occasionally for special events.”

She said she also checked in with the Police, Fire Departments and the DPW.

“So between the discussion at the Board of Public Safety and feedback from the people around, nothing has changed from what the initial idea was.”

“There’s no plan for when to close it. It’s just that there is an option should it make sense to do that for a big event — just like we do sometimes with Maple Street or other streets when we have big fun events in the City.”

Meanwhile, she said, streetscaping designs are underway, including painted and stamped roadways at that end of Elm, crosswalks, donation paver bricks to purchase (similar to outside the Wood Theater) — and capped bollards set into the street that can be pulled up as needed to close the way for traffic.

Copyright © 2026 Lone Oak Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserve