Pictured is Jamestown Business College as it stood at the beginning of 2024. JBC’s former buildings are set to be taken over for a collaboration project between St Susan’s and UCAN city mission. P-J file photo

St Susan’s Center’s project to take over the old Jamestown Business College location in collaboration with UCAN city mission is officially moving forward with approval of the site plans by the planning commission.

Project architect Chris Cooke presented to the commission again during a recent meeting, saying that nothing much has changed since the last time the project was presented.

“No changes since the last time we talked,” Cooke said. “The parcel split that we mentioned — again this is the 1960s vintage building and that’s the mansion there, that line is inconsistent there for the splitting of the two parcels. An internal discussion that we’re having, there’s currently a corridor that’s unused, connecting these two buildings together.”

During the March Planning Commission meeting, it was said that the current plan for the project is that UCAN will get the campus’s existing mansion at the south end and then St Susan’s will take the other building to the north. Inside upstairs includes more classroom and office space, which will be converted. While parts of the inside will change, there will be a minimal amount of outside facade changes, with plans to split the property as equally as possible between the two organizations.

Cooke went over a few other pieces of the project’s site plan and proposed changes at the April meeting, which remain the same as when last presented. This includes interior cafeteria work, the floor plan, taking out the connector between the mansion and the 1960s building, and keeping some other places how they are.

Director of Development, Crystal Surdyk, briefly discussed four resolutions that the Planning Commission was given in regards to the project, which is something new for the commission in order to keep it consistent with what other city boards do and how they vote.

“The city’s recommendation and staff recommendation is to approve the resolutions as they are presented,” Surdyk said.

The commission had no other questions for Cooke, and with two members recusing themselves from the vote due to involvement with St Susan’s, the four SEQR resolutions that connect to St Susan’s project were approved by the commission. The project was also presented to the county Planning Commission, and it was noted that the only recommendation from them was to include a CARTs bus stop at the location to make it easier for people to come to the center.