LAKE PLACID — Community members joined village leaders at a public open house at Generations Tap and Grill on Wednesday to give feedback on projects that will be submitted next month to the state for the village’s second bid for Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant funding.
The village effort is being led by Adam DeSantis, who is the Lake Placid/North Elba economic development director at the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism and works closely with the town and the village. This is the second year in a row that the village has applied for this competitive grant, and it’s common for municipalities to go through multiple applications.
“The feedback was good, but another community was better,” said Deputy Mayor Jackie Kelly.
The application is due Nov. 7, and the feedback from Wednesday’s open house will be taken into account for the final submission. If anyone has further ideas for the DRI application or any specific projects included in it, DeSantis would be happy to hear from you. He can be reached at adam@roostadk.com.
Potential project sites
The projects in the DRI application are focused on the Main Street corridor, including a short section of Sentinel Road, Station Street and nearby parks. Many of the projects are the same or similar to last year’s application.
Most of the properties are privately owned, and many are up for sale, Kelly said. This means that the projects would need buy-in from private developers, who would have the benefit of grant funding if the village receives the award.
Here are the proposed projects:
• Thunderbird Redevelopment Project: The proposed project would replace the former Thunderbird Motel on Main Street with a mixed-use building that would include retail spaces and housing units.
• Lower Main Street Streetscape Enhancement: This would include new sidewalks, updated ornamental lighting and burying overhead utilities to improve the appearance of lower Main Street.
• ROBO/7-Eleven Redevelopment: The village is taking suggestions for potential uses of this empty lot at 2792 Wilmington Road.
• Subway/Nice & Easy Redevelopment: The village is also taking suggestions for this property at 6163 Sentinel Road.
• Lake Placid-North Elba Historical Society Expansion: The society wants to expand the train station museum to the building’s historical footprint and appearance, expanding opportunities for exhibits.
• Adirondack Rail Trail Community Connector: This project includes a multi-modal trail network that connects the Adirondack Rail Trail to lower Main Street, the Power Pond Preserve, existing trail systems and the North Elba Show Grounds.
• Power Pond Preserve: The goal is to create a preserve along the Chubb River that would include two bridges, accessible fishing access and a trail.
• Lamb Lumber Redevelopment: The village is interested in hearing ideas for this site on Sentinel Road.
• Community Art Initiative: This project aims to install permanent outdoor murals and sculptures along with other opportunities for local artists to display their work.
• Legacy Art Trail: This proposes enhancements to Jewtraw Park to improve and install interpretive art that celebrates the village’s Olympic history.
‘WE’LL IMPROVE IT’
A new proposed project in this application is the Lamb Lumber building near the intersection of Sentinell Road and Station Street. This building recently went up for sale, so the village and ROOST hope to use this property to revitalize the area.
DeSantis noted that there has also been some progress made at some of the other locations, including the Subway/Nice and Easy development, which means that development is looking more feasible at some of the locations.
“There are improvements that are happening, investments that are being made and certainly there’s been some refinement to the other projects that were proposed,” he said. “I think our application was very complete and competitive last year, and we’ll improve it as we go through this next round.”
Other parts of the application will remain about the same, but members of the committee and stakeholders in the community have had another year to brainstorm and strengthen their ideas.
For example, Peter Roland Jr., who is on the DRI committee and is also a Lake Placid-North Elba Historical Society trustee, said the historical society has been working on formalizing their interpretive plan, discussing the themes and stories that the museum would be best suited to explore while supporting the work of the Olympic Museum and John Brown Farm.