Mt. Pleasant Receives Second $500G State Grant for Revitalization Effort
For the second year in a row, state Sen. Terrence Murphy (R-Yorktown) made the day Mount Pleasant celebrates the community a special day for the town.
Murphy presented local officials with a $500,000 state grant at last Sunday’s Mount Pleasant Day Street Fair & Car Show in Hawthorne to go toward the planned downtown revitalization efforts. That matched what the town received at last year’s event.
Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi said the grants are going toward the goal of raising at least $3 million for improvements on the stretch of Commerce Street from the Four Corners in Thornwood to downtown Hawthorne. Proposed projects include roadwork, creating sidewalks and curbing, new plantings and lighting and the creation of additional parking.
“This million-dollar investment demonstrates our commitment to the revitalization of the downtown Mount Pleasant business district,” Murphy said.
“Supervisor Fulgenzi has a crystal clear vision for the town’s future and has tremendous people working with him that will help bring this project to fruition.”
Fulgenzi said he and the board hope to avoid using town taxpayer money to pay for the revitalization. In addition to state funds, the town is seeking grants from other sources and contributions from the town IDA.
“Our downtown area is important. It says a lot about the health and well-being of our community,” Fulgenzi said. “We want to be able to create a better and more economically viable future for businesses in our downtown area and this grant will go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.”
The town is also in the process of seeking to update its Comprehensive Plan for the first time since 1970, when it was known as the Master Plan. Once the town board hires a consultant to assist, the update is expected to take eight to 12 months to complete, Fulgenzi said.
