Dunkirk Downtown Revitalization Review

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DUNKIRK, NY (WNY News Now) – Local leaders in Dunkirk have started to review potential projects that would receive funding from a multi-million-dollar downtown revitalization grant, awarded by New York State earlier this year.

In January, the City of Dunkirk joined five other Western New York municipalities winning a nearly $10 million dollar grant part of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative.

“This is a very exciting time for Dunkirk,” explained Vince DeJoy the Director of Planning and Development. “$9.7 million dollars to fund some transformative and catalytic type of redevelopment projects.”

This week, officials in the northern Chautauqua County city met with consultants which will work with the community to setup goals and review ideas.

“The way projects will happen is if people come to the meetings, standup and give us your thoughts,” continued DeJoy. “We’re going to go out of our way to get public input and have meetings are various locations around the city.”

Outlining qualifying undertakings can be tricky, since they must follow strict guidelines. Already, one idea was shot down by those with Empire State Development: restoration of Brooks Hospital.

“It was recommended to me to not include anything to do with Brooks Hospital in the application,” said DeJoy. “Brooks would have to be the entity to submit a project for consideration.”

As for a timeline, the Director of Planning and Development hopes to finalize an application by the end of summer.

“We’ll likely submit 12 to 13 projects, that will total probably $13 to $14 million dollars, from there, the state will come back with $9.7 million dollars worth of project awards.”