Officials Praise Arts District Project
Developer With Office Of Community Renewal Offers SupportBy Patrick Fanelli pfanelli@post-journal.com
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Fact Box
''It becomes
a cornerstone
for what we hope will happen on Main Street.''
Karl Gustafson
community developer with the state Office of Community Renewal
As the Arts Council for Chautauqua County embarks on the last leg of the east end redevelopment project, one of the state's leading community renewal officials says the initiative is exactly what he hoped it would be.
The project - which seeks to further define the area around the Reg Lenna Civic Center as a bustling arts and entertainment district - is ''exactly what we had envisioned'' for projects supported by the state Main Street grant program, says Karl Gustafson, community developer with the state Office of Community Renewal.
''It brings people back to the downtown. It creates a sense of being for the area. It becomes a cornerstone for what we hope will happen on Main Street,'' said Gustafson, who helps oversee the Main Street grant program through the Office of Community Renewal.
Gustafson - who grew up in Jamestown and has personal connections to the 10,000 Maniacs - was in Jamestown on Tuesday touring the east end district with a crowd of city development leaders.
David Schein, Arts Council executive director, showed Gustafson the improvements that have already been made by the Arts Council and the Reg Lenna Civic Center to the buildings adjacent to the theater.
Schein also showed Gustafson how the recently awarded $200,000 Main Street grant will be put to use. That money will help make improvements to two multi-room apartments east of the civic center, a two-bedroom loft apartment in the W.B. Swanson Building west of the civic center where the 10,000 Maniacs currently rehearse, and the floor below.
The money will also be used for facade upgrades to the Reg Studio Theater and streetscape work so that Third Street restaurants can expand outside and set up sidewalk dining spaces.
In its entirety, the project is expected to cost between $750,000 and $850,000, and both the Arts Council and the Reg Lenna Civic Center have received grants from the Western New York Foundation, the Sheldon Foundation, the Gebbie Foundation and the Lenna Foundation to help with the project.
There has also been talk of the city devoting Community Development Block Grant money to make additional improvements along that section of Third Street. Gustafson praised that multi-prong approach to developing an area like the east end entertainment district.
''That's critical. That stuff actually gets these projects going,'' Gustafson said. ''On its own, our Main Street program often doesn't work.''
The first round of Main Street funding helped develop the Desilu Playhouse on the corner of Main and Third Street. According to Greg Lindquist, Greater Jamestown Empire Zone coordinator, candidates for the third round include the Wintergarden Theatre on North Main Street, the Grants Building on the corner of Washington and Third Street and the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Station on West Second Street.
