MO0NTICELLO – The Village of Monticello and Town of Thompson held a virtual public meeting Thursday to gather input on the potential projects for their upcoming, joint application for the fifth round of the state Downtown Revitalization Initiative funding.
This round could award potentially $20 million to a single community, or a split of $10 million between two.
Sullivan County officials presented the multitude of projects that could be covered under the DRI funding and took live polls of which projects residents and locals believed were the most promising.
Projects in the running are the North Street Commons Project, the Sullivan O&W Rail Trail Connections, the old county jail redevelopment, the Strong Building/Broadway redevelopment and some other smaller projects such as municipal office consolidation, the relocation of the Sullivan Chamber of Commerce, and incentivized recruitment of downtown businesses to compete for a zero rent space, a cultural center and other public space improvements.
Sullivan County Commissioner of Planning Freda Eisenberg said the number of potential projects between the two municipalities puts them in good standing for being awarded the DRI funding.
“One of the things the state looks for in terms of its list, is a large list because they know over time, some projects might not be viable, they might drop out, or they might not be ready for the funding when the funding is available, so they’re looking for a list of between 15 and 20 projects,” said Eisenberg.
According to the public polling, the project with the most community support was the Broadway Theatre project, which had 58 percent of participants rate it as the highest value to the area in a scale of 1 to 10.
The Village of Monticello and Town of Thompson will submit their final application to the state by the 4 p.m. on Wednesday, September 15th.
