JOHNSON CITY — More than a year after the state announced Johnson City would receive $10 million in Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) funding, the village is ready to move forward with the projects it hopes will get a slice of that funding. “They’re chomping at the bit,” Johnson City Mayor Martin Meaney says of the […]
JOHNSON CITY — More than a year after the state announced Johnson City would receive $10 million in Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) funding, the village is ready to move forward with the projects it hopes will get a slice of that funding. “They’re chomping at the bit,” Johnson City Mayor Martin Meaney says of the people behind the projects. The village hopes to transform its 200-acre downtown region into a walkable district that maintains the village’s heritage while becoming a hub for shops and other businesses. The plans also call for creating more public and open spaces and growing the village’s brand as a regional center of creativity, arts, entertainment, and culture. Downtown Johnson City has already experienced growth in recent years. Binghamton University has opened new facilities, UHS Wilson Medical Center is wrapping up a $175 million transformation, and several apartment projects were completed. “It used to be you could shoot a cannon down Main Street and not hit anything,” he says. But he was surprised on a recent Saturday to head downtown only to find all the parking spaces full. Meaney wants to keep that momentum going. To help spur things along, the village recently resumed oversight of planning and zoning from the Town of Union. That enables the village to be more responsive to project requests and flexible to make things work, he says. The DRI projects, once underway, will really ramp up the downtown transformation. Ranging from façade work to the creation of housing units, the projects run the gamut, Meaney notes. The Village of Johnson City requested $600,000 of the DRI funding to create a small project fund that would assist on projects totaling less than $100,000. One of the largest projects at 333 Grand Avenue plans to bring 72 units of affordable and workforce housing to the village. Streetscaping will add pedestrian, accessible, and bike infrastructure to downtown streets. “We’ve got an alley we want to convert into a gathering space,” Meaney says. The Willbrow gathering space project would spruce up the alley with new paving, plantings, lighting, and murals to make it a place where people patronizing nearby businesses can congregate. Johnson City’s downtown is bracketed on the west by UHS and the east by Binghamton University, and is starting to fill up nicely in between, Meaney notes. As more jobs come to the area, more people are coming to the area, making those housing projects necessary. The rest of the projects, which include work at a brewery, the creation of new restaurant spaces, and shops including a vintage store and art gallery, are what will bring people downtown, he says. “It gives the people downtown something to stay downtown for,” says Meaney.