Albany County receives economic development awards

ALBANY, N.Y. » The 2019 Regional Economic Development Council awards were recently announced. Among the benefactors was Albany County.

The county will receive more than $10 million in funds for various projects and development, according to state officials.

At $400,000, officials noted that the Capital Region BOCES will expand its successful pharmacy coalition to municipalities, enabling this additional public sector to gain from prescription drug cost savings now available to school districts.

According to officials, Capital Region BOCES lacks the expertise to market to municipalities and will use grant funds to provide market research and develop a marketing plan and provide the service to current project partner Niagara County.

With $1,938,000 the City of Cohoes will install a new stormwater system along Columbia Street, which will separate the stormwater from the wastewater collection system. The stormwater system will include green infrastructure practices. Officials said this project will reduce the number of nutrients and fecal coliform discharged to the Hudson River during storm events.

Officials said the Spindle City will also receive $155,250 to design multimodal streetscape plans for Cohoes Boulevard, the primary route between the downtown and waterfront areas and located within the Cohoes Boulevard BOA. Predevelopment activities will involve survey, geotechnical and schematic designs - existing condition assessment, site prep, and removal plans, site layouts, signage and striping recommendations, utility plans, grading, drainage and landscape plans necessary to implement the project.

In addition, officials said Cohoes earned $30,000 toward completing an engineering report that evaluates alternatives for separating stormwater flows from the Vliet Street combined stormwater/sewer pipes. The goal is to reduce overflows of combined stormwater and sewage during wet weather events.

At $38,000 the City of Watervliet will update its 2006 Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP) to guide appropriate and resilient land use along its Hudson River waterfront. Officials said the LWRP update will address emerging issues and needs, including natural resource protection and restoration of waterfront resources, resiliency, point and nonpoint source pollution, shoreline stabilization, and incorporate recently- completed zoning and sustainability regulations.

In addition, $200,000 in funds will be used to establish the City of Watervliet Microenterprise Program, according to officials.

With $30,000 the Village of Green Island will complete an engineering report that focuses on the design and planning for the separation of the combined sanitary sewer and stormwater discharge system on George Street in the village.

At $38,000 Media Alliance will hire a Programming Coordinator to bring together disparate initiatives, including The Sanctuary for Independent Media, NATURE Lab, WOOC 105.3 FM, Uptown Summer, and more. (Funding for Year 1 of 2).

With $432,000, officials said the Capital District Regional Planning Commission’s Albany CSO Pool Corporation Program Administration project will operationalize the joint ad