Tannersville awarded $10M to fund revitalization projects
Community will focus on village’s downtown, build out trail system
This small community in the northern Catskills will receive $10 million to spend on its downtown after winning a competitive state grant.
The Downtown Revitalization Initiative money will be leveraged with private investment on a variety of projects meant to take advantage of renewed interest in the Catskills, while keeping housing affordable for new and longterm residents. Projects include building up to 80 units of workforce housing; renovating the Orpheum Theater, building a “Painted Village Festival Venue” and laying a series of walking and biking paths through the village.
DRI grants are meant to bolster communities that are already seeing growth, and Tannersville’s application notes the $70 million the village has received from philanthropic organizations in the last few years.
However, the village is suffering from a severe workforce shortage and affordable housing stemming from skyrocketing home values — up 40 percent from August 2020 to August 2021 — and an inundation of shortterm rentals, according to the application.
Tannersville Mayor Lee Mcgunnigle, who flew back from a vacation in Florida for the award’s announcement, said many people in the town benefited from the rising home values.
“But if you were trying to move to the community, (even) with a good job, you probably couldn’t afford a home — nor is there any inventory,” Mcgunnigle said.
The market also affects renters, the DRI application notes, and “our hardworking born-andbred-on-the-mountaintop families ... who have rented for decades are losing their homes at an alarming pace and have few places to turn,” a situation replicated through the region as wealthy downstate residents migrate north to escape the pandemic.
Mcgunnigle realizes the housing shortage — which he calls a crisis — is the other side of the coin with regard to the community’s growth. He first served as
mayor in the early 1990s, which he called “the great depression on the mountaintop,” contrasting it with the bustling sidewalks and packed eateries of the last few years.
He would like to see younger residents move into the planned workforce housing and have families, refilling the school district with pupils and making the population more diverse, Mcgunnigle said.
The housing is only one of the village’s plans with the money; the majority could go to 13 other projects meant to spruce up Tannersville’s center, which is
branded as the “Painted Village District.”
The village, located up the Kaaterskill Clove, with a full-time population of a few hundred, “is not your typical applicant” the village’s application notes, as past recipients of the grant have been small cities like Hudson and Glens Falls or neighborhoods in larger communities like Albany and Brooklyn.
However, $10 million would go far in the village. A big chunk of who gets the DRI grants is based on how much private funding could be leveraged with the state money, and the community has already recruited private partners. For instance, trolleys have already been purchased to ferry nature enthusiasts to the nearby North-south Lake; the DRI application is only requesting $250,000 for improvements on the route such as signage and for developing an app.
However, there is a long path before the projects are implemented. Like all applicants are encouraged to do, Tannersville requested more money than the grant was worth — $22 million versus the $10 million awarded. Now comes the collaborative process with the state to detail the plans and decide which ones will eventually come to fruition.
Assemblyman Chris Tague, whose district includes Tannersville, thanked Gov. Kathy Hochul for the grant in a statement, saying he hoped a revitalized downtown would benefit both visitors and long-timers.
“My hope is that this funding will help the downtown portion of Tannersville develop into a place where local business owners, residents and officials can work together to make Tannersville the best place it can be for all who live in and visit it,” according to Tague.