Governor Kathy Hochul on Monday announced a $100 million commitment in state aid to continue the process for local plans to fill in the rest of the Inner Loop in Rochester.
Hochul made the announcement at a news conference at Monroe Community College’s downtown campus, where she said she is impatient to speed up the process.
“We have a two year design process underway now,” said Hochul. “And I’m going say could we shorten that a little bit? But we’ll replicate the success of the Inner Loop East. We know how to do this, we’ve done it before, and we can have the in-fill. This area has divided Rochester too long.”
The project Hochul is talking about would be an even more massive undertaking than the earlier work to fill in the eastern portion of the Inner Loop. There is no total price tag yet for what it would cost to fill in the northern part of the Loop.
Rochester Mayor Malik Evans praised the newly announced investment in the Inner Loop-north project.
“This is clearly the most significant level of state investment in the Rochester area in modern memory," said Evans. "I think you’d have to go back to Governor DeWitt Clinton and the building of the Erie Canal to find this level of state spending on capital projects in our city."
Hochul also discussed an additional $10 million for upgrades to Frontier Field and an additional $42 million to finish enhancements to the Seneca Park Zoo.
The funding the governor talked about must still be approved as part of the new state budget, but Hochul sounded optimistic those items will get passed in the new spending plan which starts on April 1.
