State Funding Projects Highlight July City Council Voting Session

JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown City Council will hold its monthly voting session Monday night in city hall. Highlighting tonight’s voting agenda are several economic development projects vying for more than $3 million in funding from the state’s competitive consolidated funding application process.

• VIEW COMPLETE JULY VOTING AGENDA

Projects seeking funding from the state include:

• $1.7 million for Green Innovation Grant to fund a large portion of the Tracy Plaza renovation project – Total cost: $4.1 million
• $200,000 for the Jamestown Riverwalk Illumination Project – total cost: $400,000.
• $500,000 Main Street grant for preservation work to the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts complex – total cost: $4 million.
• Up to $738,000 for the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church exterior renovation project – total cost: $985,000.

Several of the projects are being coordinated by the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation with the city required to apply for the funding as the hosting municipality.

According to JRC executive director Greg Lindquist, even if the city doesn’t receive any money from the 2016 CFA process, several of these projects could still move forward based on $10,000,000 in funding the city could soon be receiving from the state.

Earlier this month Governor Andrew Cuomo made several stops in cities across the state to announce the recipients of the state’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative competitive grant program, which provides $10,000,000 each for communities in 10 different regions of the state. The governor was slated to appear in Jamestown earlier this month to make a special announcement but the appearance had to be postponed. Many suspect the announcement involved Jamestown being the recipient for the competitive grant for the Western New York region… though that has not been confirmed by the governor’s office.

Monday’s city council meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. on the 2^nd floor of city hall and is open to the public.