Millions In Development Coming To Broadway-Fillmore Area

The New York State program that was designed to help communities recover from the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is about to have shovels in the ground around Buffalo and Western New York.

New York Forward is a new program focused on helping smaller and rural communities throughout New York gain access to additional State and Federal funds to help with community improvements.

NY Forward is part of the larger New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative that was launched back in 2016 and is planning to allocate more than $700 million to New York communities.

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Last year it was announced that Buffalo's Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood would receive more than $10 million to fund 14 different projects in the area.

Located on the City of Buffalo’s East Side and one of its oldest neighborhoods, the Broadway-Fillmore Neighborhood is the focus of Buffalo’s plan for a downtown investment. The Broadway-Fillmore Neighborhood, with a relatively dense stock of largely historic commercial buildings, set forth a vision of creating special urban places, key park spaces, retail-oriented streets, improved neighborhood connections, bike and pedestrian connections, streetscape improvements, and public realm improvements. This area has seen many completed and ongoing investments, including multiple mixed-use redevelopments, a community health hub, and improvements to the Broadway Market and Buffalo Central Terminal. Building on this momentum, Buffalo aims to encourage more redevelopment of vacant structures, provide better connections between anchors and amenities through greenspace, increase affordable housing opportunities, and enhance the streetscape.
-Downtown Revitalization Initiative Round Five Winners Announcement

Those funds are starting to arrive in Western New York and we will begin to see the following projects take off soon. You can find the full details about these projects right here on the New York State DRI Website.

I for one am looking forward to seeing these projects take off. So many of our neighborhoods in Buffalo need some investment and this will go a long way to helping Buffalo build back stronger.

Another round of the grant program is open now and applications are being accepted. If you have a project that might be worthy of funding or want more information, you can find that on the DRI application page right here.