By CRAIG FREILICH

CANTON – The town and village boards will meet together Monday to jointly work out details for planned riverfront improvements, extension of water and sewer lines, and economic development projects.

The projects will be getting $666,000 in state Regional Economic Development Council funding announced Dec. 8.

The funds will go toward the town’s Riverside Renaissance downtown waterfront project, extending water and sewer service to the Maple Hill subdivision where Community Bank’s operations center is located, and a micro-lending initiative in the village.

“We’re very pleased with the award money for the projects,” said village Mayor Michael Dalton.

“The town got one and the village got two” awards according to the announcement Dec. 8 from the governor’s office, Dalton said.

A $235,000 grant from the state, along with $250,000 from the Northern Border Regional Commission announced in September, will go a long way toward the total estimated cost of $1.2 million for an extension of new water and sewer lines to the Maple Hill subdivision crossing from Lincoln Street to the west side of the Grasse River river.

That is where Community Bank NA built its new operations center just a few years ago. Since then the building has had water and sewer problems, and if the bank doesn’t have to move the center someplace else, about 88 jobs will stay in the village.

“On the village side, it is very important we will be able to provide services to that property,” said Dalton.

“We’ve been chipping away at funding,” Dalton said. “The more funding we find this way the less will have to be borne by the taxpayer,” said Dalton. “This type of infrastructure improvement is exactly what the village needs.” The new water and sewer service could also spur housing development in the Maple Hill subdivision of the Tallman tract.

The village is also due to receive a $200,000 award for a microenterprise loan fund to spur economic development.

The Town of Canton’s Riverside Renaissance project was awarded $231,274 they will use to implement parts of the Canton Grasse River Waterfront Revitalization Plan, including design of a whitewater park, development of a brownfield for parking, building a hospitality center in partnership with SUNY Canton, and building a pedestrian pathway under U.S. Route 11 to connect two downtown islands in the river.

“We’re very excited about the project,” said Canton Town Supervisor David Button. “We have never been closer to the implementation of the waterfront project than we are now.”

The plan includes a hospitality center, but that might have been scuttled when a prospective developer for that part of the plan pulled out, giving village officials second thoughts.

“We backed away because the developer that had been identified backed away,” Dalton said. Part of the plan was to make at least part of the hospitality center a commercial operation, with apartments upstairs. “We don’t know where SUNY Canton is on this. Our position was to keep it on the tax roll,” but now that is in doubt, he said.

The meeting on Monday is to “make sure we’re all on the same page,” Dalton said. “We’ve worked a long time to get to this point. I hope we don’t miss this opportunity to improve downtown,” Button said.

“We’d like to find a way to partner with the village on economic development. But we need some assurance from the village to cover their local share. That’s our position on waterfront development.”

Monday’s special joint meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Municipal Building, before the regular village board meeting at 6 p.m.