Utica got some great news a few months before the pandemic started. The city was awarded $10 million from the State in 2019 to revitalize its downtown area. COVID has slowed work down, but local leaders said projects will progress
Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute President and CEO Anna D’Ambrosio said it’s been a busy season for them.
"It’s been great at the institute this summer to really start to get back to pre-COVID participation in all of our programs,” said D’Ambrosio.
A Norman Rockwell exhibit has drawn in visitors from across the state. There’s hope that the buzz continues - at the institute and throughout downtown Utica.
“You’re gonna see a transformation of a downtown that’s not just open from 8 to 5. It’s gonna be a neighborhood now, and you’ll have activities going on in the downtown area that will be in an event-form,” said Utica mayor Robert Palmieri. “It will be transformational, and it will be an attraction down here for people to come down here and work, play and live.”
Utica is receiving $10 million from the State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative. Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute is receiving some of that money for new landscaping, building renovations, and work on their Floating Staircase.
“While it’s completely stable it does need some work since it’s been here since 1960 that will be part of it because using this staircase creates a great amphitheater when you look out toward Genesee Street where people can sit on this staircase. We’re going to be able to hopefully purchase a portable stage that we can use here and activate this space,” D’Ambrosio said.
Some of the work was set back by the pandemic. D’Ambrosio says the work at the arts institute was too but things are moving forward.
“An RFP has been sent out to landscape architects. We are also about two-thirds of the way through a campus master plan,” said D’Ambrosio.
Utica’s mayor said people should start to notice work starting on some of the DRI-funded projects in just six months. The hope is that this work will go hand-in-hand with a new hospital and the Nexus Center sports facility being built in downtown Utica too.