The Village of Brockport has received a $4.5 million donation from New York State in the form of the New York Forward Grant. With such a large amount of money being offered, Village officials released a survey for anyone in Brockport to complete to gather opinions on what the money should be put towards. The goal of the survey was to get people interested in adding new life to, or refreshing, the local community. The Village of Brockport representatives also spoke with SUNY Brockport Student Government (BSG) members during a senate meeting about the grant and tentative plans for how the money will be spent.
Originally, it was a possibility for a portion of the grant to be given to BSG for their own use; this ended up not going through, as the grant’s main focus is on revitalizing the Village of Brockport and the nearby community around the university campus. During a BSG senate meeting, members of BSG and other students across campus were able to voice their opinions on what the grant money should be used for.
According to BSG President Sharvani Regmi, there was a variety of ideas and feedback given.
“We, as students, would like to see it invested in the Village, and most of the feedback that people gave, and what I also gave was that we want Brockport to be more bikeable and beautify Main Street and make the buildings more ADA compliant, so it’s more accessible for more people,” Regmi said.
ADA compliance was just one of the few issues Regmi noticed and wanted to focus on.
“One of the main issues that was brought up was improving the transportation inside the village because right now we don’t really have any public transport except RTS that goes to Rochester, which can be unreliable at many times,” Regmi said.
Regmi stated that SUNY Brockport students are looking for more reliable transportation to places like Buffalo.
SUNY Brockport BSG Senator Theo Guth noticed another comment across students’ feedback.
“A lot of students said specifically that they want third spaces, spaces where you can just exist without spending money, public places where you could just meet up with friends and hang out,” Guth said.
Guth noted that improving the quality of Brockport town sidewalks and adding more public bike racks were on the list of popular proposals for the allocation of the grant.
One concept in particular, though it remains an idea, stuck out to him.
“One of the proposals on there is to put in a new amphitheater-type space, near where the Welcome Center is,” Guth said. “This would be just a place for students to hang out and incorporate, like tiered platforms for people to sit on, and then they can host events there, like music artists and things like that.”
More developments on the New York Forward grant and its future in Brockport are sure to appear in the coming months. More information on the grant and regular updates can be found on the Village of Brockport’s website.
