Lowville gets $10 million state development grant; Canton, Alexandria Bay to get $4.5 million each

Jan. 23—LAKE PLACID — Millions of dollars in state grants are coming to the north country villages of Canton, Alexandria Bay and Lowville through the Downtown Revitalization Initiative and the NY Forward program.

In an announcement from the Olympic park in Lake Placid on Tuesday, Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul announced Lowville will be the recipient of the $10 million 2024 DRI grant for the north country.

Lowville officials submitted a plan broken into three main categories, "restore, rediscover, reconnect."

The plan Lowville officials submitted, Hochul said, would transform the village into a regional center focused on local tourism.

"They're at the intersection of the Adirondack Mountains, Tug Hill Plateau and Thousand Islands," she said, joking that she would soon be skiing in the Tug Hill herself.

"Watch out for me in the fields," she said.

Hochul said Lowville's plan would help to improve public spaces in the village, redevelop blighted buildings and attract development for the core downtown area.

"They'll become a regional center without losing any of its small town charm," she said. She added that Lowville won't lose Lady LeWinDa Milkzalot, the locally famous cow statue that stands watch over the Lowville Producers Dairy on Utica Boulevard.

The plan is available on Lowville's website, at wdt.me/LowvilleDRI. It includes 26 public and private projects that focus on the State Street corridor and the Three Trees neighborhood, an area the village's application defines as the "urban heart" of Lewis County. It's surrounded by a number of major employers in government, manufacturing, retail and education, including Kraft-Heinz, Neenah Paper, the county health system and county offices, and the Lowville Academy and Central School.

The plan also detailed eight ongoing projects representing more than $62 million in public and private investment, ranging from the $45 million lighting, water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades undertaken by the village to a $170,000 renovation at Crave Diner.

Projects detailed for DRI money include plans to renovate the dense, mixed-use core of Lowville's State Street, with plans to redevelop 21 downtown spaces, including retail spaces, historic and cultural buildings, medical offices, public parks, streets and housing. Other projects include a streetscape redevelopment project, and marketing and branding campaign for Lowville's downtown, and the installation of wayfinding signs.

The DRI provides funding that is meant to be apportioned among a wide variety of plans, so it may only contribute to a percentage of the overall project cost, with private owners, local government and other grants coming in to fulfill the commitment.

For example, a plan to renovate the vacant Stevens Block of mixed-use buildings at 7623 N. State St., is expected to cost $1.8 million, with the DRI providing $1.1 million. A plan to renovate the vacant, mixed-use Kellogg Block on Shady Avenue would use $734,000 in DRI money for a $1.5 million project. Not every project included in a DRI application ends up receiving funding, and the projects that do don't always end up getting the amount originally defined in the DRI application.

Lowville Mayor Joseph G. Beagle was unable to attend Tuesday's event in person, but watched it stream live on the governor's website. He said he was excited by the news, which will help push many projects in Lowville forward.

"We will finally be able to more forward with private and public projects," he said. "We will have to have committee meetings with the state but we got the first step — receiving the DRI."

Beagle said the village has applied three times before for the DRI. That means years of applications, work and drafting applications. Beagle said he thinks this year was the successful one because of the strength of the village's application, and the presence of significant private investment in the projects listed this year.

He said the vision for the application, and what he hopes will become the final product, is to return Lowville to the days when many people lived downtown and businesses along State Street thrived.

"I'd like to see the village back like it was in the '60s, with apartments on the upper levels and people living downtown," Beagle said.

Assemblyman Kenneth D. Blankenbush, R-Black River, thanked the governor for awarding Lowville the north country DRI award this year, which he said was the product of years of hard work by Lowville officials.

"Residents patiently waited and formulated a comprehensive plan to boost the local economy, improve infrastructure and increase public services," he said. "With this great initiative, we are one step closer to a bright future ahead for the north country."

Canton and Alexandria Bay will each receive $4.5 million from the NY Forward grant program. Hochul said both villages submitted plans to renovate blighted or run-down areas of the village centers, including housing.

"They're both developing strategic plans to turn rundown parts of their downtowns into housing," she said. "That's the right answer, and revitalizing their downtowns in the process."

Canton Mayor Michael E. Dalton said he was proud to see Canton receive the NY Forward grant, which has been billed as a smaller grant that follows similar guidelines to the DRI, targeted to smaller communities. Dalton said Canton has put a significant amount of work into applying for the DRI as well as NY Forward. The DRI is in its seventh year, and NY Forward is in its second year.

The Canton plan calls for rebuilding and renovating existing commercial and residential businesses, beautify the Main Street corridor and improve accessibility and activities available downtown.

"With broad participation from the community and strong support from area businesses, committed stakeholders and private investors, our team has assembled an ambitious set of projects that will transform Canton," Dalton said.

Dalton said there are many people in the village government who deserve credit for having pursued these grants and put together this year's application, especially the village's director of economic development, Leigh Rodriguez, and community economic development assistant Jeni Reed.

"It's our turn now, and everyone involved should be commended, especially Leigh and Jeni," he said.

Sen. Daniel G. Stec, R-Queensbury, who represents Canton in the state legislature, said investments like this in local communities are exactly what's needed to rebuild and strengthen the north country economy.

"The $4.5 million in NY Forward funding will help bring new residential and commercial opportunities to Canton and help make it an even better place to live, work or visit," he said.

In Alexandria Bay, Hochul said the village's NY Forward application included an impressive amount of private funding for the projects identified as candidates for grant money, with a plan to remove blighted buildings downtown and improve public amenities.

State officials said there has been a significant amount of private investment in recent years in downtown Alexandria Bay, around the James Street corridor especially, and the NY Forward grant will help capitalize on those and enhance their impact.

All three villages have become so-called "pro-housing communities," their village boards having passed resolutions to affirm their commitment to developing more housing within their borders and coordinate project approval plans and development strategies to encourage housing development. Hochul has made becoming a "pro-housing community" a requirement to receive executive discretionary grants like the DRI and NY Forward programs.

Mayor Michael Putnam said the Alexandria Bay community is very grateful to be selected for the $4.5 million grant this year.

"This award will help greatly progress the businesses in our small river community to make A-Bay a better place to visit, live and enjoy," he said.

Assemblyman Scott A.Gray, R-Watertown, who represents both Alexandria Bay and Canton in the state legislature, congratulated both villages and said they are supremely deserving of the grant money.

"These grants are a tribute to the visionary planning and commitment to revitalization displayed by both communities," he said.

He said Canton's plan will build its downtown into a hub of housing, retail and entrepreneurship, which will bring vitality and prosperity. He said Alexandria Bay's plan to enhance its downtown waterfront area will boost both the economy and local quality of life.

Housing is a major focus of Hochul's administration in Albany. She sought to pass an aggressive plan to force local governments to build more housing, or lose their local planning approval power. That didn't pass the legislature last year, and Hochul said she would pursue a more rewards-based plan, rather than a penalizing one, to build more housing this year. She also pledged to commit unused state-owned properties, including SUNY campuses and closed correctional facilities, as land for more housing development.

Hochul's announcement Tuesday included a north country-focused breakdown of her 2025 executive budget proposal, with millions of dollars in grants, direct state funding and development planned.

She talked of her own history in the region, from childhood memories of jumping into the St. Lawrence River from the cliffs of Wellesley Island State Park, to being pictured with Lady LeWinDa in Lowville.

"You know I've been photographed with that cow, OK?" she said. "It's a very interesting cow."

She said the north country has a "magic" and communities that can't be found anywhere else in the world, and said the key is to thread the needle developing these communities without eliminating their charm and intrinsic value.

"These communities cannot be replicated anywhere else," she said. "These are so unique. Each has a story, a personality. And as governor, who's experienced so many of them firsthand, I know it's worth preserving."

She spoke of the success of existing state investments in the region, like the state's partnership with Citizen Advocates to redevelop a vacant block in Malone into a new, mixed-use complex, and said similar successes will come in the future, if local governments are amenable.

"We're not talking about taking your farmland and putting up high-rises, which is what some people would have you think we're trying to do," she said.

She mentioned her plan to address retail theft, hate crimes and other issues, and seemingly referenced an incident in 2020 when a Watertown man removed an LGBTQ+ Pride flag flying outside city hall.

"We've seen racist graffiti scrawled on a bridge in Saranac Lake, and pride flags that are torn down," Hochul said. "We all know this. Hate has no place in our state, so we've invested money into supporting law enforcement to enforce all these sort of quality of life issues and crimes."

Despite the fact that most north country schools will experience a drop in state aid in the coming year under Hochul's budget plan, she spoke of the increase the state is making to school aid broadly as more money for schools, and said there would be a billion dollar increase in north country school funding, although most of that appears to be set to go to just a handful of city school districts in the region, with cuts made to aid at most rural districts.

Hochul has been defensive on this issue, and argued that because foundation aid as a whole will be increasing, it cannot be termed as cuts. But some north country districts are facing decreases in state aid of more than $100,000, the first time since foundation aid was established that the districts will be bringing in less in state aid funding.

Hochul said the state will be investing millions in infrastructure in the north country in the coming year as well, fixing potholes and repairing roads across a region heavily reliant on automotive transportation.

"We'll spend $75 million to improve local north country roads and bridges, including $8 million for those potholes," she said.

Hochul announced a plan to invest $82 million in the coming year into the Olympic complex in Lake Placid, host of the 1980 winter Olympics. She said she has a dream of bringing the winter Olympics back to upstate New York, and plans to continue upkeep, maintenance and improvements at the Olympic facilities in the Adirondacks.

It was recently announced that the Jamaican national bobsled team may plan to make their home facility the Lake Placid facilities, and may stay at the Hotel Saranac in Saranac Lake while they practice. Jamaica famously lacks the winter weather required for bobsled practice, and Lake Placid has long been a secondary training facility for the team. The team did not exist during the 1980 games.

Hochul's executive budget is the first step in a long saga of deliberation among Albany lawmakers, largely behind closed doors, that characterizes the state budget setting process. Her proposals will be reviewed by the chambers of the legislature, which will write their own proposals based on the executive budget, then enter final deliberations between the Assembly, Senate and governor to deliver the final product.