POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. -- It's two weeks into Rob Rolison's term as Mayor of Poughkeepsie and he says he's keeping his promise to bring the buzz back to the city.
"Making it one way from Main Street into Garden to get over to the arterial to help with parking to help with activity you know the buzz I keep talking about getting a buzz and it will benefit the business community," Rolison said.
Rolison and other city officials gathered Thursday to re-open Garden Street in downtown Poughkeepsie.
The Street closed in 1973 after the outdoor shopping plaza, the Main Mall, was built.
"We're creating a connection that didn't exist prior to five minutes ago and traffic flow pedestrian flow all those things are very important to people who are looking to locate, looking to expand looking to improve their businesses," Rolison said.
The project cost $250,000. It was funded through a $5million grant Central Hudson received for its Main Street Revitalization project.
"Garden Street was particularly important because it goes to this parking garage here which is a main place for people to park and that access to the parking garage is something that these downtown businesses and restaurants wanted for their patrons," said Anthony Campagiorni, Central Hudson VP of Business Development and Government Affairs.
The new Garden Street Connector will allow a direct path for cars and pedestrians to access Mill Street and business owners say that hopefully this new addition will bring more business to the area.
"People would circle the block if they couldn’t find a parking space they would move on to a different area or a different restaurant not knowing that we had parking behind us because there was not a lot of signage and there was no way for people to get there once they had passed the restaurants," said Charles Fells, restaurant owner.
Central Hudson says later this year it will announce other projects it plans to fund.