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Batavia to receive $10 million state grant for downtown revitalization

Office of Governor Cuomo

Governor Andrew Cuomo was in Batavia Friday afternoon to announce that city will receive a $10 million dollar state grant.

Batavia is the Finger Lakes winner of the second round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The city is in the process of coming up with a plan to come up with projects to improve the downtown area in terms of housing, transportation, economic development and other areas.

Cuomo notes that Batavia has already worked on helping start-up businesses.

“We're no longer manufacturing. We lost this big employer. We have to get to the economy of tomorrow. And it's going to start by bringing in small businesses and feeding them and growing them and helping them incubating them into bigger businesses, literally in the same building,” Cuomo said.

Eugene Jankowski is the Batavia City Council President. He hopes eventually this will all lead to more people living and working in their downtown area.

“Batavia is in many ways the center of Genesee County, but the truth is most people who work and commute to Batavia, they come from elsewhere. This DRI award will accelerate our efforts to write our next chapter and give people a reason to stay, right here in downtown, after work, maybe go to dinner, to a show, ultimately maybe even live right here in downtown.”

Batavia is one of ten winners of the statewide competition.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.