The gloves are off.
But in a nice way.
Hoping to become the next Oneonta or Plattsburgh, or Elmira, both the Village of Cobleskill and the Village of Sharon Springs are racing to fill out their applications for a $10 million state Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant.
This is the second year for the DRI, billed by some in 2016 as the Governor’s Hunger Games.
One winner in each of the state’s 10 Economic Development regions will take home $10 million to develop and then begin implementing a plan for its downtown; both Cobleskill and Sharon think it would be them.
Wednesday, the Town of Sharon agreed to write a letter of support for the village’s application; Thursday, Cobleskill Mayor Linda Holmes—who’d already begun seeking her letters—explained the process to about a dozen people at Teen Town.
“It’s a competition, but a friendly competition,” Mayor Holmes said. “Someone’s going to win and with everything we have going on in Cobleskill, we think it could be us.”
Deadline for the applications is June 14.
The winners won’t be named until December, “So then it’s like Christmas with gifts—or a lump of coal,” Mayor Holmes joked.
Cobleskill’s plan, though, is no joke.
Mayor Holmes said the village has identified a corridor that runs along Main Street from MacArthur Avenue to Campus Drive and also includes the Aker industrial park and the fairgrounds that’s ripe for revitalization.
Anchor projects would include Chieftans, the Lamont Building, and three pieces of property from Coby’s to Scholet Furniture; adding apartments above retail space in the corridor would also be highlighted in the application.
“These are things we want to do and what we need,” she said.
Mayor Holmes said the village’s application will also build on SUNY Cobleskill and Cobleskill Regional Hospital and what they bring to the community and will highlight Aker’s Industrial Development—the former Guilford Mills, where she said Lot 18, a wine repackaging and distribution business, will be the latest and “biggest” tenant as it gears up from 40 jobs almost immediately to about 100 by the end of the year.
Though she said she’s eternally optimistic, Mayor Holmes said that even if Cobleskill doesn’t win DRI’s grand prize, she believes the merit of the application could help the village secure funding for some of its projects from other sources.
Should Cobleskill win the Mohawk Valley region’s DRI grant, Mayor Holmes said they’ll need to hire a management team to fully develop and implement the plan.
“We’ll have more projects than the county,” she said, adding, “If we want to make this a place for young people, this is what we need to do.”
In Sharon Springs, the village’s application is less specific, put projects will include badly-needed repairs to infrastructure, especially water and sewer, which are critical to the success of Sharon Springs Inc. ’s plans to restore the Imperial Baths and other historic spas there.
2016 DRI winners were: Capital Region—Glens Falls; Central New York—Oswego; Finger Lakes—Geneva; Long Island—Westbury; Mid-Hudson-Middletown; Mohawk Valley—Oneonta; New York City—Jamaica; North Country—Plattsburgh; Southern Tier—Elmira; Western New York—Jamestown.
According to the Governor’s office, the projects chosen will be those that “boost local economies by transforming communities into vibrant neighborhoods where the next generation of New Yorkers will want to live, work, and raise a family.”