Photo: Work has already begun on the new path around Clay Pit Pond.

It’s been more than two years after Town Meeting gave its OK, but finally, a premier Belmont recreation spot will soon have a new surface that the public will be able to use by Thanksgiving.

In fact, work on the Clay Pit Pond Intergenerational Walking Path had begun by contractor Ronald A Marini Corp. of Auburndale before the contract was signed by the Board of Selectmen on Monday, Sept. 17. The path’s route has been dug up and the ground is being prepped for the installation of the surface material

Marini, a firm Belmont Conservation Commission Agent Mary Trudeau said specializes in municipal parks and creating pathways, submitted the low bid of $388,000 which was accepted by the Selectmen.

The path will be permeable with a crushed stone top – quarried locally in West Roxbury – with drainage along the landscaped route.

Once completed, the path will “feel like you’re walking in a country meadow,” said Trudeau.

The path will stop where the proposed new high school will be built, but discussions with the school’s designers are for possible ways of “sharing” the area along the pond’s edge as a walkway, thus completing the path around Clay Pit. 

“It’s all very exciting,” said Trudeau.

While the contract signed by the board was for the path, in fact, the job includes work on the proposed Veterans Memorial at the Pond. “We really 

Glenn Clancy, director of the Office of Community Development, noted that the path and the Veterans Memorial were using Community Preservation Act funds – $216,550 for the path and $103,000 for the memorial – with an additional $68,450 being donated by the Belmont Veteran Memorial Fund to cover additional expenses not originally contemplated.

While the Veterans Memorial will take somewhat longer to complete – the low black granite markers for each of the conflicts Belmont residents are being made – “possibly the bulk of the work on the intergenerational path which will include hydroseeding the site will be completed by Veterans Day, Nov. 11,” said Trudeau.

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