Sharon Springs seeks big $

9/22/2022

By Patsy Nicosia

Armed with ideas, stories, and possible plans from a dozen Main Street businesses, the Village of Sharon Springs is putting together a last-minute application for a New York Forward grant.
Modeled after the Downtown Revitalization Initiative for urban areas, the $100 million NY Forward will award up to three $2.25 million to $4.5 million grants to smaller, rural communities in each of the state’s 10 Regional Economic Development Regions.
Sharon Springs has applied twice in the past for the DRI grant, but was never really in the running, Mayor Doug Plummer said Thursday.
“We had some really good applications, but we just didn’t have the applications or the real estate,” he said. “It all went to cities,” including Oneonta and Plattsburgh.
The village is looking for a $2.5 million NY Forward grant, which means it has to come up with a list of possible projects with $3.5 million.
There’s a match, Mayor Plummer said, but no one knows what it is, because “Nothing is free or easy money—or fast.”
The important thing, he said, is to come up with ideas and a narrative before Friday’s deadline.
With that in mind, trustees have reached out to local businesses and organizations; representatives from a half-dozen of them turned out Thursday to learn more.
Tony Daou, who owns the Black Cat, and has researched NY Forward application, said it focuses on restoring or adaptive uses of buildings and enhancing cultural and community space.
It needs to be in a “walkable space,” Mayor Plummer said, which means the included projects can go as far as Adelphi Paper at the top of Main Street, but not Brimstone Bakery on Chestnut Street.
The application is only a plan for possible projects; for the winners—and locally, the Village of Schoharie is also submitting an application—the state will send in a planner to help further develop and define them.
Maureen Lodes, who owns Cobbler & Co, said she’s thinking about insulating the basement and replacing storm windows; Mayor Plummer, who owns The Emporium across the street from his American Hotel, said he’s putting together some numbers for replacing the building’s façade.
Paving and lighting at Chalybeate Park and work at the Sharon Museum could also be part of the application.
“I really think that we have a really good shot at this,” Mayor Plummer said. “We do have a special name out there. It could really be our time.”