BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM — The Potsdam Food Co-op will redirect its state DRI funding from purchasing a new building on Market Street to expanding at its current 24 Elm St. location instead.

Co-op General Manager Andy Peet told North Country This Week that the Co-op’s move to purchase the former Aubuchon building at 63 Market St. did not go through.

“Our efforts to purchase the building were not successful. We made three purchase offers and none of them were accepted,” Peet said.

The original project cost to buy the Market Street building and renovate it and expand the Co-op’s operation was expected to cost $2,966,000. The expansion was to include equipment purchases and marketing as well. The project was to receive $1,659,000 million in state funding through the DRI, as well as money from the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, CDBG, USDA Rural Energy and UNFI.

Peet said however, that the option to stay at their traditional spot at 24 Elm and expand has received a great deal of support from its membership.

The Food Co-op is a membership organization but does have a retail store open to the public.

Peet said the organization has been in regular contact with the state agencies that will supply the funding for their expansion over the change of plan.

Village Planner Fred Hanss said the Co-op is currently working on supplying the state with a plan for its expansion at the Elm Street address.

“They have been pretty proactive in identifying a fall back plan when the Aubuchon deal fell through,” Hanss said. He added that the state agencies involved are appreciative of the fact that purchase deals related to projects sometimes fall through.

The village planner said the cost of renovation and expansion versus buying a new building sometimes runs “neck in neck.” He said the Food Co-op may not see any decrease in funding supplied by the state, but they won’t see an increase.

Potsdam’s $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative or DRI grant was announced by then Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul in October 2019.

A local committee developed a strategic investment plan for the cash, which included a list of projects that would be viable for the DRI funding, which is taxpayer dollars re-funneled through various state agencies to vetted projects.

The plan was submitted to New York State and eight local projects were selected from those included in the plan.

The village’s strategic investment plan can be viewed on the state website at https://on.ny.gov/3GuPER7 .

The change to the Food Co-op’s plans is the third alteration in the original plan.

Clarkson Inn and Scoops both dropped out of the program in February 2022. Expansions at both businesses were planned using DRI funding.

The Scoops project was slated to receive $118,000 with a total project cost of $257,000.

The Clarkson Inn project was to receive $600,000 in state funding with a total project cost of $2.5 million.

Village officials and other community members are hopeful that the money released from obligation by those two projects can be redirected into a skate and art sculpture park on Fall Island. The project was originally part of the list of projects the village sent to the state for inclusion in the DRI but didn’t make the final cut when the state picked projects.

Hanss said the money first must be “de-obligated” from the original state agency for the two defunct projects and then obligated to the agency that would be in charge of the skatepark if approved.

“It’s a process, and we just have to be patient,” Hanss said.