DUNKIRK — The City of Dunkirk hopes to be awarded funding to revitalize a lakefront property and make sites more shovel-ready with two new grant applications.

At a recent Economic Development Committee meeting, Development Director Rebecca Yanus said her staff has been working on two more grant applications before the end of 2017.

According to Yanus, the Restore NY grant would focus on a vacant building on the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Washington Street.

“We’re working with the building owners Jerry Burtges and Alan Shaw on a revitalization project for that site,” Yanus explained. “The grant application is for $1 million with a 10 percent match that they would be putting up. They’ve already invested a good chunk of money in the roof, which can count toward their match.”

Yanus said a mixed-use is being proposed with loft apartments on the top three floors and a business — whether offices, a restaurant or a brewery — on the ground floor.

“We don’t have to have our vision specifically in detail for that yet for this application, but if they do win the funding, then we’ll be working together to plan. It’s a great opportunity to get another building back in use,” she said.

Councilman-at-Large Andy Woloszyn asked how this grant works with the building being for sale.

“If the grant were awarded, they would be the ones developing it, they would have to take that (sale) down and they are aware of that,” Yanus responded.

The other grant the city applied for would make brownfield sites more shovel-ready if awarded.

“The EPA Assessment grant (application) was due Nov. 15 and we successfully put in for that grant. It’s a $200,000 grant that would look at phase 1 and phase 2 environmental assessment of brownfield sites. What that means is, say a vacant site across from city hall, we want to know what’s in the ground, what’s in the soil, if there’s any contaminants at all, this funding would go toward paying for that and it would be one less thing that a developer would have to do if they want to go develop that site. So this is just making our sites even more shovel ready,” Yanus said.

She explained there is no required local funding match, but it is a national grant, so the city will be competing for New York state’s allotment of funds.

Woloszyn noted this could work nicely in conjunction with the city of Dunkirk’s Brownfield Opportunity Area plan, which is going through the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) process and is in the state’s hands for approval. Council will vote on the SEQR resolution at the Dec. 19 meeting. Once the state approves the plan the city will be designated as a BOA community and be able to offer developers tax incentives.