Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the village of Malone was the North Country region’s winner of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, besting Lake Placid and a number of other municipalities that had applied for the $10 million grant award.

The DRI program is a competitive grant process meant to provide funding to enhance and renovate downtown areas of municipalities. At least six municipalities had applied across the North Country, one of 10 economic development regions throughout the state — each region selecting a $10 million-winning community annually. Selections in each of the 10 regions are made by Regional Economic Development Councils. The councils are comprised of local business, academic and community leaders.

With millions up for grabs and only one winner per region, competition is stiff. It’s common for communities that are ultimately chosen as winners to have one or multiple unsuccessful applications beforehand.

At least one community, Ithaca, has applied in each of the eight rounds and has yet to win, according to reporting from the Ithaca Times. The publication added that past feedback from the state noted that the community’s economic activity and support from Cornell University made it a lower priority compared to other communities in the Southern Tier region.

To develop an application, municipalities first identify a physical boundary zone for possible projects that is compact and walkable.

Lake Placid focused its project zone for the application on the lower Main Street section of the village, beginning at the Post Office and extending south along Main Street. It includes portions of Sentinel Road and Station Street.

A map of the application’s zone can be found at tinyurl.com/374rcwnu.

The application included a list of several initial projects, based on community feedback gathered from multiple listening sessions. These included the Power Pond Preserve, Lower Main Street historic center streetscape enhancement, a legacy art trail, a community connector, historical society rehabilitation and rehabilitation of the open lot at 2792 Wilmington Road — the site of the former 7-Eleven gas station.

Private projects included the former Subway Sandwich Shop location at 6163 Sentinel Road, the former IGA building near Lisa G’s restaurant, the Hurley Brothers property on Station Street and a potential project at the former Thunderbird Motel.

Next steps

This was Lake Placid’s first year applying. Village officials said it won’t be its last. Deputy Mayor Jackie Kelly said putting in the work around the application this year, while unsuccessful, still has value, as Lake Placid will now have the opportunity to debrief and receive feedback from the state on where its application could be improved and made more competitive for future cycles.

She said that while no debriefs have been scheduled yet, she was looking forward to the feedback, and was not currently sure what aspects of the application may have taken Lake Placid out of the running in the eighth round.

Kelly said she had spoken with Malone Mayor Andrea Dumas recently. Kelly congratulated her on the village’s win and the two discussed what Dumas felt had made Malone’s application stand out.

One possible boost for Lake Placid’s future applications will be rail trail use data, according to Kelly. She said the state Department of Environmental Conservation has been monitoring usage rates. The trail’s heavy use coupled with Lake Placid’s DRI project area seeking to better connect and integrate the rail trail’s eastern terminus with the rest of Lake Placid’s downtown could buttress future applications.

Kelly thanked everyone who had worked to help Lake Placid develop its application, as well as community members who provided feedback that served as the foundation of the application. She said in all, the application encompassed about six months of planning.

“We’re still going to keep trying,” she said.

Adam DeSantis, the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism’s director of economic development who assisted and helped advise Lake Placid officials in developing its application for the past round, said that while he was disappointed for Lake Placid to not have been chosen, he was also looking forward to receiving the feedback.

DeSantis said he hopes that they review the boundary area that has been defined for the grant to see how well it fits the state’s standard for being both compact and walkable. He said he wanted feedback to cover if there are any attractive potential projects within the area that were missed in Lake Placid’s first application, and could be incorporated in the future.

Once a winner is chosen

As intensive as the application process is, being chosen to receive the DRI award is far from the last step of the process. Projects are then reconsidered, and there is an opportunity, working with state consultants, to add or modify projects within the boundary area before the funds are assigned to specific works within the chosen community’s boundary area.

Qualifying projects can be public or private, and can receive full or partial DRI funding to complete. Those details are ironed out after a community is chosen to receive the grant, according to DeSantis.

“Once a community is selected and is awarded the DRI grant, the strategic investment planning process (begins), at which time there is an open call for projects,” he said in December. “At that point, there could be new projects, (and some initial) projects are going to be redesigned and modified based on additional feedback.”

The money is dispersed from the state on a step-by-step basis depending on the specific project as they move into action, and is generally provided on a reimbursement rather than upfront. The process can take several years after a community is announced as the winner to have received all of its DRI funding.

The DRI program is administered by the state Department of State, in conjunction with Empire State Development — a state agency tasked with promoting economic development — New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal and New York State Energy Research and Development Committee.