Joe Puccio: Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon held a press conference this morning to announce public funding for businesses on Manlius Street in East Syracuse. Our Jaden Gerard is live right now, Jaden, how will this grant benefit East Syracuse?
Jaden Gerard: Thanks guys, there’s a lot of cars coming through Manlius Street in East Syracuse here, but there’s really not a lot of foot traffic. The grant that was announced by McMahon earlier today is supposed to fix doors, windows, facades of these buildings and the first thing when you go through here is you see the fronts of the buildings and you see what they look like. So McMahon and the businesses and the citizens are hoping that improving the image will attract more people.
Gerard: Windows boarded up, shops closed, Manlius Street in East Syracuse has surely seen better days. That’s where the New York Main Street Project comes in, giving resources so Onondaga County’s main streets can stay as as they key economic sources they are. $935,000 will be used to repair the outside of six businesses on Manlius Street to make them more presentable. East Syracuse’s mayor Lorene Dadey expressed her gratitude and the importance of this program to her community.
Lorene Dadey: We’re very to be in partnership with you and your team and my team is excited to work and be a part of this and help the businesses grow our economy and grow the facelift of East Syracuse so thank you.
Gerard: Some business owners know the benefits in an improvement in appearance, but can envision an even more improved version of East Syracuse. Owners of Kostas Pizza House, Kostas Kousmanidis as ideas of how the town can attract even more outside attention.
Kostas Kousmanidis: We gotta put some nightlights at nighttime for the sidewalks to attract the people, attract the tourists. New development, more business and it’s definitely gonna help a lot.
Gerard: For the business owners, this is only the first step for their community. McMahon shares a similar view, but on a bigger scale. $29 million has already been poured into the New York Main Street Project in Onondaga County, and McMahon hopes it catches on.
Ryan McMahon: We go and we do a project and we do a corridor, and what’s nice about this is that there’s density with these properties, they’re all within these few blocks here. Then, everybody else sees what’s going on, and then they want to get involved and we continue the momentum, it’s contagious.
Gerard: I got the chance to speak with another business owner who actually will be receiving some of the grant that was announced this morning. He shared a similar sentiment: that this is only the first step and more needs to be done to develop East Syracuse into the way some of the business owners want it to be. McMahon has his eyes on all of Onondaga County, but business owners feel that in order fully attract more and more people, more still needs to be done, but this is a good step. From East Syracuse, I’m Jaden Gerard.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — The revamping of Manlius Street in The Village of East Syracuse is beginning with its appearance. With multiple businesses needing plenty of repairs to their windows and doors, it was announced that the New York Main Street Program would kick off that process.
The New York Main Street project is a state-wide initiative aimed to maintain the economic centers of small towns and villages. Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon announced at a press conference Monday morning that $935,000 will be used to fix the outside of six businesses on the street, all of them within two blocks of each other. These include Redwood Diner, Color Express Salon, and Black Sea Tattoo among others getting money. They are each getting funding from a range of $90,000 – to just over $160,000.
This is a portion of the $29 million that has already been used in Onondaga County. The previous investment made by the program was a $1.3 million grant going towards another six businesses in Liverpool.
Business owners in East Syracuse also see this as the start of a new beginning. Kostas Kousmanidis, owner of Kostas Pizza House on East Manlius Street, is looking forward to it as well.
“Absolutely,” he said, “improvement is always good, it’s going to improve business, of course we need to fix up the village.”
However, Koumanidis, like some of his neighbors, is looking for further improvement in addition to the grant that was announced.
“We got to start somewhere, we can always use improvements. Start it first, then see what it looks like, and see what needs more and we can continue doing it,” he explained.
McMahon referred to the Main Street program as “contagious”, hoping that other communities will want to get involved in the future. For East Syracuse, these improvements are a chance at a new beginning, and its residents are hopeful there’s a lot more to come.
