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Development Council seeking funding for three-story building at Jubilee plaza site in Canton

Posted 10/3/19

CANTON -- The North Country Regional Economic Development Council will seek funding to demolish Midtown Plaza and construct a new three-story building in its place. Of 11 priority projects for which …

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Development Council seeking funding for three-story building at Jubilee plaza site in Canton

Posted

CANTON -- The North Country Regional Economic Development Council will seek funding to demolish Midtown Plaza and construct a new three-story building in its place.

Of 11 priority projects for which the council will seek funding this year, it is the only one in St. Lawrence County.

The council is seeking $3,343,000 toward a total project cost of $16.7 million, according to the NREDC's recent progress report.

"SUNY Canton, Laker Development, and DEW Ventures will redevelop derelict Midtown Plaza, located in the heart of downtown Canton, into a mixed-use property. The existing buildings will be demolished and replaced by a three-story structure. The first floor will include a 17,500-square-foot Entrepreneurship Center along with 12,500 square feet of commercial space. The second and third floors will house 45 residential units. Improvements will also be made to parking lots and grounds, resulting in an attractive 3.76-acre space integrated with the Main Street corridor," the progress report says.

According to a press release earlier this summer from SUNY Canton, the facility would house the college's Small Business Development Center and would include co-working spaces, private offices for rent, state-of-the-art conference facilities and event space. The Entrepreneurship Center would also include a makerspace with 3D printers and other high-tech tools available for public use.

Earlier this summer, Roo Riverwoods, LLC, an affiliate of the Canton College Foundation, secured a purchase option on the vacant plaza properties owned by Garry L. Cohen which will be part of the redevelopment project.

"This project will bring new economic vitality and entrepreneurial activity to the heart of downtown," said SUNY Canton President Zvi Szafran in a press release earlier this summer. "We all worked hard to make this a winning situation for everyone in Canton. We look forward to working with the developers and their teams to make this vision a reality."

The redevelopment venture was included as a potential anchor project in the Village of Canton's application for the $10 million New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative. If the village is selected, a portion of the funding may be devoted to the undertaking. Other funding opportunities will also be pursued, including the potential NCREDC grant.

NCREDC anticipates that six jobs will be created at the new building once it is complete and 11 construction jobs during the building process.

For the Regional Economic Development Council program, Albany has split New York into 10 regions, with St. Lawrence County in North Country region.

The councils, which include representatives from private and public enterprises, either seek out projects in their region or have them submitted through the state Consolidated Funding Application, commonly called a CFA. The CFA sends the projects to be considered for programs offering state funding.

The councils take the projects they receive, score them out of 20 and forward them to the state, which assigns up to an extra 80 points. The highest scored projects receive funding. “Priority projects” have to be considered “transformative and transformational” to its region, and they automatically receive a score of 20 from its respective regional council.

Job creation is not always necessary to get funding, but some of the programs that feed funding through the regional councils could require it.

The 2019 progress report says of the other 10 priority projects, three each are in Jefferson and Lewis counties, two are in Essex County and there is one apiece in Franklin and Clinton counties.