DRYDEN — The village of Dryden won a $4.5 million NY Forward grant on its third try, the state announced Thursday in a program to help communities revitalize their downtowns.
Gov. Kathy Hochul made the announcement Thursday that the village won the third round of the program, which works to accelerate and expand the revitalization of smaller and rural downtowns.
Dryden Mayor Michael Murphy said everyone is “incredibly excited and grateful.” The projects are meant to focus on West Main Street.
“Any influx of money this large, into a community such as Dryden should be life-changing,” said Kayla Lane, who works on the grant committee. Lane also owns Dryden Realty and Apartment Co., and Corner Brew on West Main Street.
“This was our third year applying and I have been involved with the application process from the very beginning, it’s very exciting,” Lane said.
“Although we weren’t selected in our first attempt, we remained determined and refused to be discouraged,” Murphy said.
The NY Forward program, like the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative that Cortland and Homer have won, encourages cooperation among many different players in a community: governments, non-profits, businesses and developers among them. Elsewhere in the greater Cortland area, Moravia and Groton have also won NY Forward grants.
The village hired Thoma Development Consultants of Cortland to strengthen the proposal which paid off when it was named a finalist in 2023. Murphy said that motivated them to enhance the application for 2024.
“Most of what we envisioned was a great improvement to West Main Street to bring life back to our original “downtown,”’ Lane said. Village officials want to improve facades, commercial spaces and residential units.
Lane said another idea is to enhance the village’s appeal with a more welcoming trail entrance, next to Dryden Agway, to showcase the Jim Schug Trail that spans the village.
The village’s application was created largely through community input. Murphy said village officials gathered more than 100 responses through questionnaires in 2022, and had a community meeting.
Dryden will now begin the process of developing a Strategic Investment Plan, and even more community input is expected.
“A lot of this money is intended for the community to have input on how it is invested and is not so much for the village, as a municipality, to use towards their infrastructure,” Lane said.
”It will require local building owners and business owners to participate, apply and match some of the investment,” Lane said. “But we hope to see the same community input and participation we have seen from our community when it comes to other community-driven projects and goals.”
Murphy said this award is just the beginning of a new and improved Dryden.
“With the combined support of state and private funding, the Village of Dryden is poised to transform into a thriving destination for new businesses and families,” Murphy said.
“We [also] secured several grants that underscore our commitment to increasing housing, improving infrastructure, and fostering a vibrant downtown area,” Murphy said. One of those grants was given to Corner Brew, which just won a $500,000 New York Main Street grant to refurbish the cafe’s exterior.
Hochul’s office explained why the village was picked, saying in a release, “With median home values and rents that are affordable to all, Dryden’s parks, tree-lined sidewalks and friendly neighborhoods make it a desirable small community to live in, promoting a high quality of life,” Hochul said.
The village of Bath was the other $4.5 million Southern Tier winner of the NY Forward program, and Hochul announced the city of Binghamton as the area’s $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative winner.
