Downtown Revitalization Investments are a Critical Part of the State's Comprehensive Economic Development and Community Growth Strategy

State to Work with Residents, Community Leaders and Public Officials to Revitalize Downtown Cohoes

Governor Hochul: "But I do believe that you see the vision as people in this room see the vision to even do more, to meet the needs of our peoplethey want to be in a walkable downtown, and we want a welcoming and walkable downtown."

Hochul: "By investing in Cohoes' downtown, we are ensuring that the built environment can be as beautiful and welcoming as the natural environment that residents and visitors have long enjoyed."

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the City of Cohoes will receive $10 million in funding as the Capital Region winner of the sixth round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. For the Downtown Revitalization Initiative Round 6, each of the state's 10 economic development regions are being awarded $10 million, to make for a total state commitment of $100 million in funding and investments to help communities boost their economies by transforming downtowns into vibrant neighborhoods.  

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks are available below:

Thank you, Owen. Wow, wonderful welcome. This is where the original Buffalo Bills played. Is that what he said? No, I know it's Buffalo Bill Cody and a few others. John Phillip Sousa played here. This is quite an extraordinary place and I'm delighted to be here. So, Owen, thank you for what you do.

The keeper of this beautiful jewel. Make sure it's continued, polished up, and we'll talk about that in a couple minutes. But also, Mayor Bill Keeler of this extraordinary community. This community just oozes charm and character and personality. I want to thank you for all you do. As our great mayor, let's give our mayor of Cohoes another round of applause.

Carmen Bogle, the mayor of Cambridge is here. Thank you, Carmen for stepping up to lead your community. Mark Evans, the Mayor of Coxsackie. Thank you, Mayor. And also, Michael Abrams, the Mayor of Kinderhook. So happy to see everybody.

We also have some of our other friends in government. We have assemblyman, John McDonald has joined us. Assemblymember, Scott Bendett, State Senator Jacob Ashby, thank you for coming. Also, Mike Lyons, the president of the Greater Capital Region Building and Construction Trades, and all my friends in labor who are building backyard communities one street at a time.

So, it's great to be here. Thank you.

You know, there's a lot of history in this building. You just walk in and the charm is incredible. And this is the fourth oldest actively performing arts center in America. So you've kept it going, and I cannot wait till you back here for the 150th celebration. And it's a monument to this unique type of architecture, well preserved, and so many people have performed here.

As you heard from Owen, you know Jimmy Durante and. All these others and I want to thank all of you for just keeping this going. It's beautiful. I'm proud of it and it didn't hurt that we were able to help you with $2.3 million from the state last month, so I'm glad to keep the renovations going.

And you think about history, you know, you go out west and they think history started in, you know, early 1900s or so. You come here and we know the great history of Henry Hudson and coming up the river and many communities followed in the aftermaths, the city of Albany and others. But this place, you know was result of the first bridge across the Mohawk River back in the 1700s.

And this place, and I don't think people realize this, this was one of the earliest places and one of that became one of the largest cotton producers in the world. Did you know that? One of the largest cotton producers in the world right here in Cohoes. So, there's stories that I want to think about. The glorious past, but that's always part of our story.

It's always going to be there. It's always preserved. But I want to talk about the present and the future and how we can leave a mark in our communities just as those who came before us who believed in this there, who believed in the Capitol Region, who built up industries and created wealth and downtowns that are so vibrant.

Again, the architecture here is so beautiful, and you don't need to spend more than five minutes walking the streets here to realize this is a community on the ups. And the promising opportunities for people who live here and believe in this, and commercial corridors are refilling up with small businesses and loft departments and bustling storefronts.

This is an alive place and what it does is it also draws younger people to our communities and young people who grew up here don't have to go to another place to build their lives and their families. They can stay right here and that is so important to me. You know, where I'm from, a small community outside of Buffalo.

Town of Hamburg. Village of Hamburg, a small village, similar architecture, similar history. Hamburg claims to have invented the hamburger. No one's disputed that. So, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to stick with that one. But I also know that downtowns can fall into decline. I saw that when the big industries left and my small town where I grew up and thought it was a great community, had all these 'Going out of Business' signs and 'Closed' and 'For Rent' signs and the downtown just really disintegrated into almost nothing. Everybody left, and now for our downtowns to be able to come back with support from the state, this is something that I'm so proud to be able to do as governor.

This is one of my favorite initiatives is to talk about the Downtown Revitalization Initiative because 14 years in local government taught me that you can have all the plans on the books you want, but you rarely have enough money to do it all at once. Yeah, we'll do this this year, and then in a couple years we'll be able to do this and do this. And when you can have this concentration of money, $10 million all in one shot, to be able to execute the vision, brought forth, not by Albany, but by the people who care so deeply about this community.

The elected leaders. Having a mayor who's so supportive, bringing together his team, the community leaders, the shop owners, all of you who had an idea that we could be even better than we are. And that's why programs like this are so extraordinary. So, I'm very proud to announce that the City of Cohoes. Getting a little ahead of us there.

Getting a little ahead of us. Mike. Mike, I saw that. We'll let Mike lead off the cheers to announce the $10 million recipient of the Downtown Revitalization Award. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

So, what are you going to do with all the money, Mayor? We're going to reinvigorate our historic places, so they're here 150 years from now. That's our responsibility. The city hall, the music hall, the beautiful public library you have here. I mean, the public libraries are just so beautiful and have a story. I talk often about the little Carnegie Library we had in my hometown.

When I grew up with a big family and the only way, I could escape all my loud siblings was to go to the library. So, I read a lot of books, and so that's such an important cornerstone of many of our downtowns. But to have a theater and a library — this is the foundation. But I do believe that you see the vision as people in this room see the vision to even do more, to meet the needs of our — people want to be here, they want to be in a walkable downtown, and we want a welcoming and walkable downtown. And let's make some enhancements to the streetscape. We did this in my hometown with the signage and the facade improvements and even the bump-outs to make it easier to walk across the street. All these make — well, you may not even know it when you're experiencing it, but you also notice when it's not there, you also recognize challenges. So, we're going to work on increasing our population density here as well because people are discovering our small towns and small villages and cities, and I believe that the future is limitless.

So, we're going to think about the people, small business owners starting out who have this dream, like my mom had this dream of starting a small flower shop. My mother knew nothing about business, retail, all she knew is she didn't like the flowers that the local florist did for my brother's wedding. And therefore, her daughter, the lawyer who had been out of law school for one month was now going to start this business for her.

So, that went fine. Now, I don't know that she ever made much money, but she wanted to hire women from the community, women who had been displaced, and they called them displaced homemakers at the time. So, my mom used this as her way to give back, she started a small business. I was involved in starting our local business association, which kind of propelled me into politics. And so, for small businesses, this is a sign that this is a community that matters. So, this is a place to plant your flag right here. And for young families starting out again, the housing stock, we're going to continue growing that, but that's what we have to do is meet those needs.

So, this is a place to plant your flag right here. And for young families starting out again - the housing stock, we're going to continue growing that, but that's what we have to do is meet those needs. People want to be here. And I'm supportive of all these projects because they're also envisioning more housing coming to our downtowns and in the surrounding areas. Because you can have a great community, but nobody else can enjoy it, you can't expand - even people who grow up in this community can't live there with their own families to be raising the kids near the grandparents, which is so important.

I'm a grandmother now. I know this is important if we don't build the housing around and create ways to take abandoned buildings and turn them into places that people can start a family. So, this is how it all begins. And so, I also wanted to mention that there's some littler towns around us, little villages that have the same kind of needs, who have a vision. And this is also an opportunity, I started this last year. We had the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. It was always $10 million, which is transformative without a doubt. And we'll be back over the next year to talk about the projects that are funded. Of course, everybody puts in about $20 million worth of products they want, and we'll get it down to 10, but we want your vision to have the real stamp on all this.  

But also, there's smaller communities where even $10 million was beyond the scale. So, I said, "Let's start something for smaller communities. Let's start what we call the New York Forward program and have smaller grant amounts." Whereas a small downtown you have something like $2.25 million — can make a difference.  

And so, I'm proud to announce that the Village of Cambridge will receive a $2.25 million award grant. There you go, Mayor Bogle, congratulations. This is a charming town, nestled in the Adirondacks. It's so beautiful there. It has a vibrant artistic community that thrives along the farms, Victorian-era opera house and hotels, and it's another area where if we don't invest the money now to preserve these jewels, then they're gone. And shame on us if we don't do that.

So, you have a great farmers' market, and there's already a great number of reasons to visit, but we're going to make it even better. You want to have an incubator for entrepreneurs and artists and build up the recreational economy and again, new housing. And thank you for having the vision to say that your downtown can be more vibrant if people can actually live above the storefronts. That's the key. That's the key. Change the zoning, whatever barriers exist to having housing above these storefronts, break them down because those are the most lively communities that I've seen throughout the State of New York.  

So, congratulations to Cambridge and I look forward to visiting once again soon as we start to unfold these projects. But Cambridge isn't going to be the only community benefiting today. Let's just keep it going. For our friends in Kinderhook, very happy to be able to support a community that you're proud of as the birthplace of President Martin Van Buren. Bigger deal to me is that he was a governor. I mean, Governor Marvin Van Buren.

So, let's celebrate the home, the birthplace of New York's ninth governor, and the Village of Kinderhook will also receive over $2.25 million New York Forward grant. Congratulations to Mayor Michael Abrams. Again, wonderful downtown, restaurants, shops, a vibrant arts community, and I know you want to kickstart a number of projects and help with, again, building housing that's affordable. So important, preserving our landmark structures as well. So, I know Kinderhook has been waiting for this kind of investment, and now you have it. And I cannot wait to see what you accomplish. So, congratulations to everyone from Kinderhook as well.  

Let's not forget the Village of Coxsackie, which will receive a $4.5 million award from the New York Forward grant. Congratulations to Mayor Mark Evans.

Known as Hudson River's front porch, they've undergone a remarkable transformation during recent years. And the news is out. I mean, this is a place people want to be. They want to live there, in a downtown, if you take the before and after pictures, the boarded up downtown, how it's flourishing today with new businesses continuing to open and want to be there. And the Wire Event Center and the Newbury Hotel and all these other great places to visit, it's no surprise that families want to settle there.

People just want that sense of place, and I think that's one of the outgrowths of the pandemic is that people were in search of community that they had lost for those two years of isolation, and they want to be back together, and they want to kind of go back to the good old days, if you will. And that also draws us to our small towns that really haven't changed, if you look at the main streets, they haven't changed in 100 years. That's if you do it right — if you preserve the architecture, the downtowns, and continue to add to them and bring more life and more people, but never lose that original charm that defines them.

So, we've already invested more than $3 million to improve the Riverside Park because our waterfront properties are so precious to us. And it's amazing how they're overlooked for so long, when you look along the Hudson River. I live in Buffalo, I look at the waterfront, we had a steel plant take up some of the most beautiful prime real estate. But people are now rethinking the use of the waterfront and how this really is an asset. And people are just calmed by the water and any way we can make connections to waterfronts and make it easier for people to just walk to or bicycle to. It just lifts up the spirit and adds something special to our communities.

So, we're going to continue our commitment to Coxsackie, and I know you're going to use the funding to protect historic assets. Again, what's really important? Protect our assets, build more housing, increase the housing so we don't have to say goodbye to people. That we can drive down prices, which are starting to really become, you know, prohibitive for families starting out or a young person who wants to start their life here as senior citizens just simply look to downsize and live in the communities in their older years. They don't have that availability of housing.

So, I'm leaning hard into, you know, this idea of, you know, building more housing simply because other states are far ahead of us. We're losing people to our neighboring states because they have more supply, therefore the prices are cheaper. Again, it's real simple economics here. So that's what I'm focusing on. I'm supporting communities that have their own vision. I'm encouraging others who don't have the same vision to understand that this is a matter of survival. You know, building more housing and creating housing — all levels of housing.

You know that first apartment, that first condo, the first you know, little house. I mean, this is the trajectory of my life, my parents' life. We all had a chance to live in tiny places. My first place was 600 square feet and I thought it was the best thing I'd ever have. But then I had opportunities to move ahead and move ahead and move ahead because there was enough housing. And if we don't offer that, and communities are becoming stifled.

So, I'm real excited about our New York Housing Compact, which proposes 800,000 new housing units over the next decade. It is so doable. It's asking each community to grow upstate by 1 percent over the next years. I guarantee every community can go right past that.

But I also want to lift up communities that want to do this, but don't have the resources for infrastructure. Again, 14 years on a town board, I knew all the ways that you could make a project happen. I was on the town board, our zoning board, our planning board, our traffic safety board. But also, I know all the ways people can say no. They just put up barriers and roadblocks, and that's how a community stagnates. And I don't want to see that happen here in Upstate.

We now have businesses who want to be here. Large companies are discovering us, and they are attracted by what we have here. The great quality of life, the access to the most beautiful natural wonders, the rivers, the mountains — Erie Canal, manmade, but it's still extraordinary. So, we have what people want. We also have to give them a place to live.

And that's what I'm asking all elected leaders to support is giving them a place to live. We'll support the infrastructure costs, we'll help tremendously with sewers, we'll help with the planning. So, I also want us to talk about, as we revitalize downtowns and preserve the charm, we have to think about the future and what we want to look like in the future. We want to be a place that has the capacity to handle our children, their families, our parents, and all the businesses who want to invest in Upstate New York, which is - now it's finally happening.

It took a long time in my life to see this. It's finally starting to happen. It's an exciting era for all of us. And again, as we sit in a place that's so filled with history, the people who sat here and envisioned this back in 1874, the two people have put this together — I think one was a local newspaper man — and they just thought this would be great to have this as a community asset.

He wasn't the smartest newspaper man because he sold out his share four years later for a quarter to his partner. That was not smart. He should have stuck with the newspapers. But as a result of those individuals seeing something, seeing the potential, they built this masterpiece. And it's up to all of us to make sure that we continue to protect this, but also envision a future just like they did back 150 years ago.

I want people 150 years from now to look back and say, "What we did in 2023, investing in these communities, building the housing people need, was a catalyst for a future, which was absolutely unstoppable."

So, thank you everyone. Congratulations, and let me offer an opportunity for Mayor Keeler from the great City of Cohoes to tell us how you're going to spend $10 million.