Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Central New York Winners of Downtown Revitalization Initiative and NY Forward Program

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the Village of Cazenovia will receive $10 million in funding as the Central New York winner of the ninth round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI), and the Villages of Marcellus and Mexico will each receive $4.5 million as the Central New York winners of the fourth round of NY Forward. For Round 9 of the DRI and Round 4 of the NY Forward Program, each of the state's 10 economic development regions are being awarded $10 million from each program, to make for a total state commitment of $200 million in funding and investments to help communities boost their economies by transforming downtowns into vibrant neighborhoods. To date, total investments in the DRI and NY Forward have reached $1.4 billion.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

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

 Good afternoon, everyone.

So fabulous to be here. I want to thank all of you for joining us this afternoon. Please, sit down. I had a meeting in Albany that went a little longer than I expected so I just arrived, but it's always great to be back in Central New York — a place I spent four years as a college student — a little smaller school than this called Syracuse University up the road.

But I never left my love of this area, and my appreciation, especially for our smaller communities that are the life, and the vibrancy and the personality of our state. And those that are blessed to be on beautiful waterways, and our lakes, our streams, our creeks — it really, really just reminds me of why I love New York State so very, very much.

And I want to thank our representatives from our State Legislature, Senator Rachel May and Assemblymember Al Stirpe are here. Let's give them a round of applause. Jim Cunningham, the Chair of the Madison County Board of Supervisors. Jim, please take a bow. And, of course, you heard we'll be hearing shortly from our mayors from Cazenovia and Marcellus and Mexico.

But, this is a real gem when I think about places that are so significant, but sometimes circumstances don't go their way. And a place like this beautiful college campus that was started as a seminary, and was a women's school, and then two-year college and four-year — started on this progression where it was really a driving force of the local economy, and a lot of shops and businesses and places where the students rented housing were all part of this ecosystem here.

And all of a sudden, after almost 200 years, which is quite extraordinary, all of a sudden that's gone and you're left wondering, “What happens next? Is there a future? What will happen to our community?” And I heard the anxiety. I talked to people from this area and it was a big hit. And it almost reminded me on a different scale from when I was growing up in Western New York — Hamburg, down the road — and Bethlehem Steel pulled up and 20,000 jobs were gone overnight. And my grandpa had worked there, my dad had worked there, my uncles had worked there — and all of a sudden, what does the future bring?

And so, I knew that this was an important area as well as our smaller communities that we'll be talking about in a couple minutes. But sometimes the state can be a good friend, and I never felt that when I spent 14 years in local government — 14 years on a town board, 14 years of direct communication with my constituents where you'd work at a town board meeting until late at night. We had no limits on public comment, by the way. But it toughens you up — you hear from everybody and then you'd go to the grocery store, 10 or 11 or 12 o'clock at night, to get the milk for the kids’ cereal in the morning.

And then someone says, “Your town snowplow just knocked over my mailbox. What are you going to do about it?” So I'm really used to being immersed in local government and how responsive it is because these are your neighbors. And I never lost that sense of appreciation for the power of local government — whether it's our towns, our villages, our cities. And so that's what brings me here today. And we talk about how the state can be an ally and help with literally transformational investments to help communities like Cazenovia and Marcellus and Mexico.

And I want to thank everyone else I mentioned here today, but also we have leaders from our labor community here as well. And I want to thank Greg Lancette. Oh, I see — where did he go? I just saw him. I see him again. I saw you, Greg. Greg. Greg and other elected officials — Greg and our elected officials.

But I mentioned Greg because there's something else that's going on not too far from this region, and that is the — have you heard about this place called Micron? Okay. And I'll tell you one more story is that I was fairly new as Governor and I heard that the CEO was in from Utah visiting the sites outside of Syracuse in Clay, New York. And I was — it was a snow storm, it was a bitter cold night in January my first year. And I was advised not to take the, kind of, rickety 40-year-old state plane in a snowstorm to go there, but I also knew I was not going to miss the chance to try and sell how extraordinary Central New York is and to persuade them that this is the place they need to make their home.

And so I went there for what was supposed to be about a half hour meeting. It went into three hours, and I talked about the wineries, the lakes, the villages, Gateway to the Adirondacks, and the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the Thousand Islands, Niagara Falls, and the workforce, and the colleges and the whole ecosystem. And so we won them over, but I also needed Greg and the labor community to step up to make it happen. And so I could not be prouder that there'll be people working here. Babies not even born yet will be working someday to help build this 20 year project, which we're very proud of. So I want to thank our friends from labor and Greg, in particular, for all he did there as well.

But as I talk about these buildings, and it's so great to see life back in here, but the Mayor told me there's already activities. Kids are playing soccer in here? Okay, we didn't let it go too long, right? But there was a lot of uncertainty about these buildings. But the community came together, and this is, again, what I love about local government and local communities where you know everybody — these are your neighbors.

My mom had a little flower shop and everybody knew my mom. And we delivered flowers — that's what I used to do for Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter. We were never home. We're always delivering flowers for mom's shop. But I know what a tight-knit community looks like and feels, and it exists right here.

And it was the power of the people coming together that created a vision of what the possibilities were with this large, but now vacant, campus. And so to the local community, the local investors who stepped forward, I thank you. And they decided to purchase this campus with a whole new vision of what it could be. And I want the State of New York to be your partner in making that become a reality. So as we reimagine this former campus site, this is exactly what I'm looking for when I make the decisions on who is going to win — which community is going to win our Downtown Revitalization Initiative. Is there a drum roll here? Any suspense out there yet?

So I want to create hubs of business, and job creation and housing, and restore that, preserving that historic charm we have here. So that is why I am very proud to announce that the Village of Cazenovia is being awarded $10 million from the State Downtown Revitalization Initiative — $10 million.

[...]

What I love about this program is, again, I harken back to my days in local government — and we would occasionally get state grants. I was trying to turn an old water treatment plant on the shores of Lake Erie into a visitor center, a Seaway Trail visitor center. It took me a decade because I'd get $50,000 to help fix the roof from Senator Volcker, and then two years later, it blew off because he had a wicked snowstorm and I had to start over again — I'm not kidding. And all the — to piecemeal projects, you never could get the impact you want all at once. This gives you that “wow” factor in a short time, and I want all the aspects of it to not be sequential. You don't do one part now, and then we'll talk about the — it all should be simultaneous because then the community has the realization of its own vision in a very fast time where you could actually build that sense of, “Yes, things can happen. Good things are happening here right in my hometown.”

So we could be transforming this campus into a multi-use innovation and community district, and, as I said, focused on housing. We need more housing. We need more housing. And when everybody says people are leaving New York, they're obviously not leaving their houses behind because I should have more housing. But people are staying and they're coming here, and more are coming here. And so I reject the notion that we're losing our young people, because they want to be here. It's up to us, though, to build the housing so they can stay and build their families and have space for hospitality and recreation and just really be a compliment to the charming downtown we have.

And some of the ideas include — I can't say they're all going to happen because you have to submit — here's how it goes: you're going to submit to us a plan and everybody's going to get really excited to probably submit to us about $20 million worth of ideas, and we'll have to pay it down a bit. I'm telling you on the front end, narrow it down. But turning dorms into housing, how brilliant is that? How brilliant is that? That's exactly how we can deal with this housing shortage we have right now and let young people know, who were born here, who want to raise their kids here, that they can — that we can have housing.

A young person who graduated from college doesn't need a lot of space. My first place with my husband was 500 square feet and we had two bikes sitting next to the couch. It was a tiny place, but it brings you really close together when you're newlywed, so we didn't complain. And transforming this gym into a state-of-the-art wellness center for the community. Imagine that?That's just brilliant. And so everyone who thought of this, I thank you. And a new home for CazArtsArts Cultural Center — they'll draw tours year round. People love coming to this area, they truly do, but to give them more attractions in a better space and so much more, and I know you have many ideas to help with the downtown as well: Wall Street Alley and the new pedestrian walkway, and turning a former gas station into a park. I mean, that's brilliant. I love that idea. And just find ways to lift up our communities and let them know they really matter.

And this has been a successful program across the state. And I think about some of your neighbors here: Oswego, Cortland, Fulton, Oneida, Auburn and Syracuse, or other places that have benefits. So go to those places, talk to the leaders of those communities and find out what the opportunities were, but what also were the barriers that they ran into? So you can be learning from other areas where people may have made a mistake or things took too long, or just how you can keep the momentum going — and that's what I'm pleading with you to do because the results will be extraordinary, they really will. And the whole economy of this region is just poised for greatness and to regain that former glory that was always associated with this area. We can do this. And, as I mentioned, we have other businesses coming — supply chain businesses to Micron — so this area is ready for this innovation as well.

So I also want to talk about smaller villages. I was traveling the state when I was Lieutenant Governor; I used to announce all the DRI awards, and then I'd be there for the first milestones, and then the groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings and everything. And I realized that $10 million is great, but there are some communities, many of our communities are so small, they couldn't actually figure out how to spend $10 million. I mean some of our communities are literally an intersection, right? But they matter. They have value. They're important to us. And so I decided when I first became Governor to create the New York Forward program, which makes smaller communities know how much I value them and that they have an important place, and we want to invest in them as well. And they're not left out from our state investments — that's why I am proud to announce that the Villages of Mexico and Marcellus have been awarded $4.5 million each as part of our New York Forward program. Congratulations.

So, for Mexico, that's going to be used to enhance public spaces around the downtown and revitalize some of the natural ecosystems there. We know you have more to do on that front, we look forward to seeing your vision. And Marcellus is going to go toward expanding housing, and co-working spaces and child care. Don't get me on child care. It is the communities that are really forward-thinking are the ones that are addressing the shortage of child care because our economy is held back when we have a lot of people, moms in particular, who want to work, but they, like me a generation ago, couldn't find child care. And I had to leave a job I loved and my husband had just started at the government, so all of a sudden we're down to almost nothing.

But the kids turned out okay. The problem is those kids are now having their own kids in the child care crisis and shortage and the affordability challenges are still there. So I have leaned hard into this and all of Upstate is going to have 4-K [Pre-K] starting next year. We're going to get to 3-K, we're going to get to 2-K and eventually we're going to be taking care of all of our children because this is a game changer for communities and families, but also the businesses and the local economy who want these individuals to be part of their workforce. Marcellus, thank you for mentioning child care as well.

So again, these will be transformational for these villages and we've already committed $1.4 billion to these two programs across the state, and you just need to go out there and see some of the communities, the before and after, and you'll be among the ranks of those that people are coming to for lessons on how to do this. And so let's just make this place vibrant once again. I know that I don't have the answers, I don't have to. I just have to invest in your vision, and that's what we've unlocked here today with all these three awards.

So I look forward to continuing to be your partner and ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to bring up one of our great mayors who's going to tell you what it feels like to get $10 million. It doesn't happen every day of the week. The Mayor of the Village of Cazenovia, Kurt Wheeler. We'll also be bringing up Marcellus Mayor Chad Clark and Mexico Mayor Terry Grimshaw for a photo with everybody.