City Council members on Monday discussed applying for a grant to help pay for a longstanding project proposal that would first improve lighting in the area to improve public safety. The resolution will approve the city applying for a $100,000 grant through the Project For Public Spaces and General Motors, which is direct funding meant to help organizations transform key community public spaces. When discussing the resolution at the Public Safety Committee meeting on Monday, Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large and chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said specifically this project is looking at lighting, seating and some paintwork.

“It’s basically beautifying that area which right now is very dimly lit, and as I’ve been saying for several years now is really a public safety issue down in that area as far as people going through there,” Russell said. “You go down there in the evening at 10 or 11 o’clock at night it is a whole different world down there as far as people moving through that area; it’s kind of a chokehold there and it definitely needs a lot more lighting and beautification would be nice to see.”

Councilman Bill Reynolds, R-Ward 5, noted that many organizations are applying for the grant and that funding for the project already there comes in the form of $143,000 from the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities, CCPEG and HUD funding, and $67,175 from the city’s ARPA funds. Russell said funding for lighting down there was allocated before but so far nothing has come of it and that the committee needed to ask if the ARPA funds were still allocated for it.

During the full work session, it was confirmed that the ARPA funding is still allocated for this project.

The area underneath the railroad bridge on North Main Street and the status of the Arcade Building next to it was a topic of conversation at both Monday’s Public Safety Committee and Work Session meetings. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

“There’s kind of a conglomeration of different funds and that’s to be able to really do a major overhaul for that entire area,” City Development Director Crystal Surdyk said.

It was unknown how competitive this grant might be as it is the city’s first time applying, but Surdyk added that it is a privately funded grant and not a federal or state grant. Russell asked Surdyk to give everyone a summary of what the project will entail, and Surdyk said it is specifically for the underpass on North Main Street where it converges with South Main Street by the Riverwalk trail head and Blackstone Ney.

“Currently it is fenced off,” Surdyk said. “We’ve had some issues under there with garbage accumulating and a number of different things. It’s lit now with BPU lighting but it’s not very welcoming. And this area we really see as our connection between downtown and our commercial Brooklyn Square corridor and the Riverwalk and the Chadakoin River Basin which we’ve put a lot of effort into. There’s a couple of different projects happening in the River Basin, so this project will really tie in and support all of those pieces together.”

Additionally, the Department of Development will engage with a landscape architect and get some engineering drawings with a final design that will be approved through the regular process. Public engagement is also anticipated, to get some ideas from council and the public for how they want to upgrade the space.

“We want it to be a place where people can feel safe as they’re walking through there but also want to be and can interact with it and potentially activate the space in some new ways,” Surdyk said. “We really again want to tie that in with all of the activity in the Riverwalk and Basin area and tie the downtown and commercial corridors together; so lighting, furnishings, landscaping, fresh paint potentially, some murals that might tie into some murals that we’re looking at for the River Basin.”

No designs for any murals have been talked about yet, so Surdyk said they do not know what that might look like but the plan is for it to be something that brings it all together.

The project is being done in conjunction with the railroad as well, and Russell also asked about the status of the buildings in that area such as the Arcade building and others that are dilapidated.

Surdyk said a couple of different developers have toured the Arcade building, so there is some interest in it, and a call with the executive director of Preservation Buffalo Niagara is scheduled for next week. Surdyk said after the latest tour of the building it was found to be surprisingly in better condition and more stable than was originally thought, but many concerns still remain about the exterior wall and interior brick wall. Surdyk said the executive director of Preservation Buffalo Niagara is very aware of the building and they will be talking through some options with her, along with talking with the Department of State for some other potential funding for stabilization as well.

“We’ll continue to work towards getting that wall especially stabilized and hopefully finding a developer that is interested in taking that project on,” Surdyk said.

Surdyk said it will cost a lot to rehabilitate it, but it will also cost a lot to tear it down, so hopefully the department can find somebody with the interest and ideas, such as doing something that she said she’s seen in other places where the facade is saved. The long term intention is to not just redo the viaduct area and leave the Arcade building to fall down on its own.

Surdyk also mentioned that the Downtown Revitalization grant is now open and that that same area is being looked at for that. Jamestown was one of the first communities to receive funding from that in 2016 and now that those funds are almost out they are able to apply again in the second round. More information on that is set to come at the next work session.