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Village Hears Update On Plans For Vacant Lot

FALCONER — Home Leasing LLC has been fine-tuning its plans for the empty lots on Main Street, presenting floor plans for the insides of the buildings to the Falconer Village Board on Monday.

In August this year, Home Leasing held a public meeting, presenting three different plans for the lots, both of which contained buildings that were destroyed in fires.

One of the new proposed buildings will face Main Street with the other facing Davis Street.

Development manager Jennifer Higgins and her team took questions and suggestions at the meeting, then used them to create a draft for the interior of the buildings.

“We’re constantly getting suggestions and using them to give the community everything they want,” Higgins said. “There’s a community room to use for events for our residents, a 24-hour maintenance team, and even an indoor place to store bikes because we’ve noticed since coming here that people in Falconer are mostly bike riders. This gives them a place to safely store their bikes without having to lug them onto the elevator.”

Both buildings would be three floors, with one bedroom units being on the first floor. The Main Street building would also have a fitness room and a laundry room. Behind the Main Street building would contain a greenspace for public use.

“The parking lot would have 58 parking spaces, because we’ve found that not a lot of people who use our housing use cars,” Higgins said. “We wanted to give Falconer as much greenspace as possible.”

The front of the Main Street building, Higgins said, will be used for commercial and public space. She said part of the building’s design is to encourage sidewalk traffic.

“I’m told the people of Falconer used to walk the streets a lot,” Higgins said. “They haven’t had much of a reason to since the fires. By putting in businesses on the first floor, they’ll be able to walk everywhere again.”

The board expressed concerns about whether an emergency worker would be able to get a stretcher to the upper floors. Higgins said Home Leasing always builds its elevators to accommodate emergency equipment such as stretchers, so workers never have to worry about carrying patients down the stairs in an emergency.

There were other concerns by the board that were addressed, such as the doors and space beyond them being large enough to fit furniture such as couches through them without trouble when a tennant is moving in and out. Higgins said the building plans presented were drafts at the moment, and could be changed to accommodate moving in couches.

Another concern was residents using the balconies or porches for extra storage space. Home Leasing, at both meetings, had noted how it wished to provide each resident with their own personal outdoor space, including those living on the second and third floors. Higgins said the Main Street building would have a bulk storage room for residents, and with a 24-hour staff, people wouldn’t have to worry about balconies being misused, or of leases being violated.

“That’s the benefit of having full-time property maintenance person,” Higgins said. “And with 50 units, it’s the perfect number for the staff and the budget.”

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