The Carr’s Reborn project for the former C.L. Carr Department Store on Main Street has met another goal to get the project moving.
Approved by the Downtown Revitalization Initiative Committee earlier this month, the project received City Council’s blessing Monday to be part of a Restore NY grant application for $2 million.
No one spoke during a public hearing about the application, and City Council later voted to pursue the grant. Cities with a population less than 40,000 can apply or up to $2 million, and it is available for projects to “demolish/deconstruct and/or rehabilitate/reconstruct vacant, abandoned, surplus and/ore condemned residential, commercial and/or mixed-use buildings.”
The former Carr’s site is expected to accommodate several upper floor apartments and business/office use on the ground floor.
Consultant David Ciurzynski previously described the site’s future: renovating the upper two floors for apartments, installing arched windows in the front overlooking Main Street, preparing the lower levels for commercial space by removing asbestos and making them more enticing for prospective businesses to invest in the site.
Ciurzynski also included a vision for the project, aptly titled Carr's Reborn.
“We can restore the former landmark to its former glory,” he said during the DRI Committee’s Sept. 13 meeting.
The project would take $1 million in Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant funding and $4 million from property owner Ken Mistler. Possible uses for the main floor have not been determined, and it’s about “what does downtown Batavia need?” Ciurzynski had said.
During the prior meeting, DRI Committee members approved a motion to move the project forward. They were: City Council President Eugene Jankowski, Steve Hyde, Dr. James Sunser, Craig Yunker, Tammy Hathaway, Erik Fix, Tom Turnbull, Susie Ott, Paul Battaglia, Marty Macdonald and Nathan Varland.
After Monday’s conference session, City Council voted to submit an application for this sixth round of the Restore NY Communities Initiative Municipal Grant Program.
File Photo of the former C.L. Carr Department Store on Main Street in downtown, Batavia.
