Three residence halls overlook the Jamestown Community College campus. P-J photo by Michael Zabrodsky

A cost-saving measure for Chautauqua Institution has turned into a money-making opportunity for Jamestown Community College as an agreement between JCC and Chautauqua is coming to fruition.

For the summer months, Chautauqua will be renting out rooms in JCC residence halls on the Jamestown campus.

JCC Faculty Student Association Executive Director Stephen Riczker provided an update Thursday to the JCC Board of Trustees.

In a Sept. 27 Post-Journal article, Kyle Keogh, then interim Chautauqua Institution CEO, said housing institution employees during the summer session will help Chautauqua solve one of its biggest short-term financial challenges.

“We’ve been working for months on this,” Riczker said. “(JCC President) Dr. (Daniel) DeMarte and I have been working through details, and we met with Chautauqua on a number of occasions, but we did finally come to an agreement.”

Riczker said about 76 people will be living on campus, staying in the residence halls.

“We’ve got 19 suites that we’re going to be using,” Riczker added.

Riczker said that hotel interns, hospitality staff, as well as theater and opera staff will be housed in the rooms. People will begin moving in around May 27 and moving out Aug. 19.

Riczker added that JCC buildings and grounds employees along with employees from The Resource center will be cleaning rooms to help with the transitions for the move-in and move-out periods.

“I think it’s a really nice collaboration between a lot of large organizations here in town to make this work,” Riczker said.

JCC, Riczker noted, will receive about $94,000 in revenue from the pact, and the revenue will be used for upgrades to the residence halls.

“This is going to be a nice injection of cash into the residence halls to help us improve the living arrangements for the students, our couches, our chairs, our dining room furniture, things like that need replacing,” Riczker noted.

Riczker added that with people living in the residence halls during the summer, security will be increased as well.

Keogh said in 2025 that moving staff off the grounds was necessary because rental capacity on the institution’s grounds decreased 27% between 2015 and 2025. Moving more staff off-grounds frees up additional housing for those who want to visit Chautauqua Institution and tests the idea that lack of available rental space is limiting Chautauqua’s attendance growth.

Riczker said The Resource Center will be providing transportion for Chautauqua employees to and from JCC.

In other business:

Trustee and Buildings and Grounds Committee Member Lou DiPalma said the property in the town of Dunkirk on Route 60 has interested parties, “but at this point, it’s all verbal with nothing in writing, no dollar figures or anything like that, just some general discussion.”

Also, DiPalma talked about the Annex Building located on Second Street. JCC Vice President of Finance and Operations Karen Fuller-Markham said at a April 14 B&G committee meeting that JCC had extended its agreement with a real estate agent expires on May 3. The committee may look at other options after May 3.

“This has been a challenging venture, as we all know,” DiPalma said. “To say the least, we’ve explored renovation possibilities, (and) demolition possibilities. There really has not been any, any strong interest. And it’s been a challenge.”

Trustees also approved a contract for sale of real property for a college parcel of land next to the building on the Dunkirk property.