Pictured is the former Welch building in Westfield. A loan for a multi-million dollar housing project was approved Tuesday by the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency. P-J file photo

Four significant Chautauqua County projects have won a combined total of $4.75 million in funding from the Restore New York Communities Initiative. Those projects include restoration of the White Inn in Fredonia, the Welch’s building in Westfield, a Central Avenue transformation for Dunkirk and the village of Silver Creek Senior School Apartments.

“These Restore New York grants will help to reimagine downtowns across our state and transform vacant, blighted, and underutilized buildings into vibrant community anchors,” state Gov. Kathy Hochul said in making the announcement on Tuesday. “Thanks to $102 million of state investment, we are breathing new life into communities from Hudson to North Hempstead, jumpstarting new economic activity, and ensuring that New York state continues to be a place where people come to live, work, and raise their families.”

The grants include:

• $1 million for the project at 60 Main St., Silver Creek, involves the substantial rehabilitation, conversion, and an addition to a vacant, nearly 100-year old, 57,000 square foot abandoned former school into a 59,900 square foot building with 47 units of affordable rental homes for seniors ages 62 and older. The site is an eyesore and a community safety hazard with severe structural issues to be resolved and costly contaminants including: asbestos, lead and PCBs that will be remediated.

• $1.25 milion for the White Inn Restoration in Fredonia. The former hotel and restaurant has been vacant and in a state of decline since 2017. The developer intends to renovate and reopen the 25-room hotel to include a restaurant and banquet services. The project is in the heart of the village of Fredonia and has the opportunity to attract significant new investment, economic activity, and attract visitors, students and families of SUNY Fredonia. The Inn requires extensive renovation however, once completed, it will provide visitors to the region with a new and unique lodging experience.

• $1.5 million for the Welch building in the village of Westfield. This project will provide historic rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of the three-story concrete and brick Welch’s Building. Constructed in 1909 by the Welch’s Grape Juice Company for their office headquarters, with a 1967 addition responsive to the initial design aesthetic, the building is historically significant and important to the region. The commercial investment will result in $ the creation of full-time construction jobs and full-time operations management after construction which will have spinoff economic development benefits. This project will also Improve local housing stock through the creation of 46 new housing units, which are highly lacking in this market area.

• $1 million for city of Dunkirk Central Avenue Transformation. This project will address vacant properties in the 400 block of Central Avenue in Downtown Dunkirk. The property at 411 Central and its equipment was sold to Allan Steinberg, a local investor, that saw the potential to bring back a vacant popular grocery store and create a “Broadway Market” type of space where kiosks would be rented, and the old-world butcher shop reopened with a permanent vendor. The Building at 423-427 Central Avenue is a two-story structure with a brick facade that has had only one storefront occupied and would be developed into four new apartments that can be affordable, with (1) three-bedroom, a 2-bedroom, and (2) one-bedroom units.

Restore New York supports municipal revitalization efforts across the state, helping to remove blight, reinvigorate downtowns, and generate economic opportunity in communities statewide. The program, administered by Empire State Development, is designed to help local governments revitalize their communities and encourage commercial investment, improve the local housing stock, put properties back on the tax rolls and increase the local tax base.