David Rainbird 9/21/24 David Rainbird 9/21/24

What Do We Want Middletown To Look Like?

On Thursday, September 5, Middletown’s volunteer DRI committee held a public meeting at the Union Grove Distillery in Arkville to talk about the community’s vision for revitalizing our downtowns. More than 70 people turned out for a lively discussion about what we want our downtowns to look like, and what kinds of projects would be most transformative for our community.

Middletown’s application is being written by a group of volunteers who live in the downtown areas of Arkville, Fleischmanns, and Margaretville, under the guidance of Peg Ellsworth and her staff at the MARK Project.

As executive director of MARK, Peg successfully steered Roxbury to a winning DRI application in 2023, although it took a few years of trying before Roxbury won the regional award. Peg told attendees at the meeting that competition for the grants is stiff, and it might take multiple tries for Middletown to succeed too. With a deadline of October 18 for turning in the application, the committee is on a tight timeline.

Both the $10 million DRI and its sister program, the $4.5 million state NY Forward award, are highly competitive. The 62 counties that make up New York State are divided into 10 economic development regions, and the way the programs are currently structured, each region awards a single DRI grant and two NY Forward grants for each region.

Middletown, along with the rest of Delaware County, is in the Southern Tier region, which also includes the larger cities of Binghamton and Ithaca. As a member of the Southern Tier regional council that decides the awards, Peg knows the process well. She will have to recuse herself from any discussion of Middletown’s application by the council.

If Middletown wins the award, there will be another opportunity to propose new projects for funding, or refine projects that were already included in the application.

What Middletown Wants

Community members who attended the meeting came up with a wealth of great ideas for proposed DRI projects. After the meeting, the committee compiled a stack of colorful Post-It notes into a spreadsheet of ideas for our downtowns.

A few of the transformative ideas discussed:

New walking and biking trails that connect the downtown areas to each other, to our river waterfronts, and to other trail systems in the area.

Restored and enhanced sidewalks for downtown areas.

Breathing new life into Middletown’s two grand old theaters, the Galli-Curci in Margaretville and the Maxbilt in Fleischmanns, for new performing arts space or other projects.
A boost to public transportation in the area. Some members discussed building wi-fi hotspots and shelter at local bus stops and trailheads.

An ice rink and other improvements to the nonprofit Catskill Recreation Center in Arkville.

Expanded services at the Margaretville Hospital (which might soon become the site of a new Federally Qualified Health Center delivering affordable primary care to local residents).

Creating new permanent housing – a huge priority for many attendees, and an increasingly tough problem in the region and beyond. Some attendees at the meeting discussed the idea of creating a land trust for affordable housing, as Kingston and other communities have done in recent years.

Not every great idea can be funded through DRI – and that’s because it’s a one-time award, designed to invest mainly in capital projects that physically transform downtown areas. DRI does not fund planning, operations and maintenance costs, real estate acquisition, or equipment that is moved from one place to another. So, for instance, DRI funding can’t be used to buy an electric bus to run public transportation, or pay drivers — but it can be put toward permanent assets like a bus stop or charging infrastructure. DRI funds can’t be used to buy a building for housing, but if the owner of a building wants to renovate it to build housing, DRI funds can be used to make that possible.

Another important thing to know about DRI is that if a project has a private sponsor, any funding the state awards has to be matched by at least 25 percent. Public and nonprofit projects do not have this requirement.

How You Can Help

*Fleischmanns mayor Sam Gil, Middletown supervisor Glen Faulkner, and Margaretville mayor John Hubbell take a break from the DRI public meeting to smile for the camera.*

If you live or work in one of Middletown’s downtown areas, there are a few things you can do to help boost our chances of success at this grant.

Write a letter of support

The more voices from the community speak up to make the case for New York State investing in our town, the better we can make our case for funding. We have written a guide for writing letters of support, which you can find at this link:

Guide to Letters of Support

We need letters to be sent to the MARK Project by October 6.

Educate yourself about the process

New York State’s website for the DRI and NY Forward programs has a wealth of information about how the grants work, what kinds of projects it funds, and what other past winners are doing with the funding.

Tell us your ideas

If you have a good idea for a project that could be transformative for our downtowns, especially if you own or are involved with the property it sits on, please use the contact form on the Middletown DRI website to tell us about it! Filling out that form also allows us to stay in touch with you via email to let you know about new developments or more opportunities for public input.

Our Vision

*MARK Project director Peg Ellsworth (right) talks with local transit advocate Gary Kusen (middle), while community members work in small groups on vision and priorities.*

The DRI committee has adopted a draft vision statement, distilled like fine Union Grove rye whiskey from the results of a vision exercise Peg led at our public meeting. Here it is:

To enhance and revitalize Fleischmanns, Arkville and Margaretville by restoring the downtown centers of these interconnected communities,

In a way that strengthens physical connections, celebrates historic assets, prioritizes environmental resilience, promotes access to natural resources, builds stronger neighborly relationships, creates a sense of place for multigenerational residents and visitors, embraces diversity and inclusion, and makes new opportunities for housing, health, employment and entrepreneurship,

So that our connected downtown districts thrive and benefit equitably, visitors are inspired to return, and our growth will yield a prosperous future for all.

Town of Middletown DRI Volunteer Committee Members

Benjamin Fenton

Lissa Harris

Christina Kim

Brendan McClean

Matthew Steen

Cambria Tallman

Robin Williams

Margaret Ellsworth 9/18/24 Margaret Ellsworth 9/18/24

Open Call to the Community for Letters of Support

If you live or work in the town of Middletown, or if you are a local official who represents us, your support matters!

Community members at a Sept. 5 public engagement meeting used stickers to show their priorities for transformative projects that could enhance the downtown areas of Arkville, Fleischmanns, and Margaretville.

If you live or work in the town of Middletown, or if you are a local official who represents us, your support matters!

Our community has a lot of great ideas for projects that will be transformative for Middletown’s downtown areas. Many of them will be featured in our application. If we succeed, we will have more opportunities to put forth additional projects for state funding.

If we hope to succeed, it is critical that we show New York State how much support we have from the community for taking on transformative downtown projects. No matter who you are – a business owner, a champion for fixing local problems, a public official, or a resident who wants to see the community thrive – your voice matters.

We – the MARK Project and the members of the volunteer committee working on Middletown’s DRI application – are asking the community to write letters of support for our DRI application. It is important that letters be unique, and not generic copies of each other. Please don’t copy and paste!

We need your letters by October 6 in order to make sure we can include them in our application, which is due to New York State by October 18. All letters should be EMAILED TO THE MARK PROJECT so we can collect them in one place!

A Guide to Writing a Letter of Support

Please use your own words and include words and phrases that include the following:

Support
Enthusiasm
Opportunities for economic growth and sustainability
Partnership
Future
Multi-generational
Visitors to the region
Historic assets

Example:

I fully support the Middletown Downtown Revitalization application. This program would see many projects to fruition that will greatly contribute to the economic growth and sustainability of Fleischmanns, Arkville, Margaretville and the surrounding region.

DO NOT COPY AND PASTE THE ABOVE. PLEASE USE YOUR OWN WORDS

Letters should be addressed to:

Omar Sanders, Director
Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council
44 Hawley Street
Binghamton, NY 13901

DO NOT MAIL THE LETTER

All letters should be emailed to admin@markproject.org

Margaret Ellsworth 9/18/24 Margaret Ellsworth 9/18/24

Draft Vision Statement

Peg Ellsworth of the MARK Project addresses community members at a meeting in Arkville, who gathered to discuss community priorities in applying to the competitive $10 million New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant program.

MARK Project executive director Peg Ellsworth led us all in a small-group exercise aimed at creating a vision statement to guide all our work on the DRI application. Although different people came up with different words in that exercise, strong themes ran through them all. As a community, we want robust and affordable housing, healthcare, employment, recreation, harmony with the environment, and good quality of life for all residents. We want to make the most of our rich historical and natural assets. We want to thrive.

Here is our attempt to synthesize all those vision statements into one that will guide our work. We hope that this shared vision will inspire us to think boldly about the future of Middletown.

OUR VISION

To enhance and revitalize Fleischmanns, Arkville and Margaretville by restoring the downtown centers of these interconnected communities,

In a way that strengthens physical connections, celebrates historic assets, prioritizes environmental resilience, promotes access to natural resources, builds stronger neighborly relationships, creates a sense of place for multigenerational residents and visitors, embraces diversity and inclusion, and makes new opportunities for housing, health, employment and entrepreneurship,

So that our connected downtown districts thrive and benefit equitably, visitors are inspired to return, and our growth will yield a prosperous future for all.

Town of Middletown DRI Volunteer Committee Members: