Drizzle fell on loose earth, pooling inside ruts etched by heavy machinery at Eichler's Cove last week. Where once stood trees, overgrowth, and an old foundation on a hillside, will soon be a level parking area and smooth roadway exiting the facility where the Town of Newtown operates a small marina, boat launch, and beach.

Stepping out of the wet weather and into a storage garage onsite, Rob Manna with LRM Inc, a landscape construction company based in Newtown, said his crews began work in January. He anticipates completing sitework, which includes an enlarged parking area, an exit driveway, several retaining walls, and improved drainage, by late April, finishing the job with pavement.

Tuesday afternoon, March 7, Mr Manna looked across the graded soil and new stonework, where a backhoe continued to cut a drainage line.

"Getting the walls up, that takes time," he said. Just several weeks ago work had begun with land clearing, temporarily leaving a small sea of stumps and piles of large stones as grading began.

The lakeside location will no longer be accessed by a narrow roadway with one way in and out of the parking area. Instead, cars, many towing boats, will enter where the road follows the Halfway River to the cove, park in the lot on the left, and exit from the other end of the lot using the new driveway a one way circular flow.

"It will be a good layout," Mr Manna said. The parking area will roughly double, he estimated.

As work progressed, he said, "We were able to reuse materials, screen the soil, and use onsite."

The work is part of a Parks and Recreation Department Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) project with a $350,000 budget, said Assistant Director of Parks Carl Samuelson.

"It's parking lot refurbishment and it will give us increased parking and greatly improve parking lot safety and drainage so [runoff] is not going into the lake." Stantec, Inc, did the redesign

Mr Samuelson said of the new road arrangement, "It will be one way in and one way out so traffic flows in one direction. It was impossible before when someone pulls in with a boat and out with a boat."

The recreation department has been planning this upgrade for several years, he said.