Copyright berkshireeagle
NORTH ADAMS — North Adams has been awarded $3.1 million in Community One Stop for Growth funding that will start work on five major projects throughout the city. The money tackles five "high impact" projects the city has been eyeing to fix, which include Heritage State Park, the Mohawk Theater, downtown infrastructure improvements, a vacant storefront program and the Walnut Street stabilization project. Here's how it breaks down. Walnut Street The program slates $2 million for reconstruction of the Walnut Street wall, "addressing longstanding infrastructure concerns and improving safety," according to a news release. Mayor Jennifer Macksey said the money will fund the repair of three-quarters of the wall, which will then be reattached to the "good portion" of the wall. The funds will also be used to address drainage problems — if the collapsing wall were to come down, everything behind it is "coming right down to State Street." "The pipes [coming out of the wall] are so corroded that they are not catching the water," she said. "This is big because it has been affecting that neighborhood for a few years now and the wall has been in disrepair as long as I can remember." Vacant storefronts and the Mohawk The vacant storefront program will work alongside the North Adams Partnership to provide $50,000 of refundable tax credits to property owners to fill storefronts with new businesses. Another $50,000 will pay for a business plan for Mohawk Theater that focuses on what the city can do to sell or revitalize the long-vacant theater. The partnership will help the city create a vacant storefront inventory, collect stakeholders in the project and help create a list of potential matches for businesses for the spaces, Executive Director Jenny Wright said. "We'll help connect the existing community to the broader economic landscape in Western Massachusetts," she said. Engineering plans Heritage State Park will get $250,000 to create "architectural and engineering documents" that are needed to secure construction funding to repair the park's old buildings. It will also get $50,000 to prepare the property for "redevelopment and public use." Finally, North Adams will get $700,000 to fund engineering plans for "critical utility and infrastructure improvements in the downtown core," particularly around Eagle and Main streets. How One Stop works The Community One Stop for Growth is a one-stop shop for state grant funding. Its portal combines 12 of its most popular community development grant programs and a "collaborative review process." One Stop applications from cities were due in June, and Macksey said she typically doesn't hear if they are rewarded until Thanksgiving. "This is big for North Adams," Macksey said. "It's really aligning awards with real projects and that's what our purpose is." The city already has its award letters and is now awaiting the state to award contracts for each project, said Macksey. Because it already has the repair engineered for the Walnut Street Wall, she expected it would go out to bid early next year with a tentative construction date of April. Contracts for all awards will go out around the same time she added, "but that's the one people will feel and see right away."
