SARANAC LAKE — This village established its own Downtown Revitalization Initiative deadline for Nov. 2, nearly a month-and-a-half ahead of the state deadline for proposals, to further refine the applications.

The process has been ongoing since early this year. Community Development Coordinator Jamie Konkoski said the village set its deadline ahead of the state’s Dec. 14 deadline for three reasons:

¯ First, when the village was applying for this $10 million bundle of grant funding, it started accepting proposals on a rolling basis. These proposals were added to the village’s DRI application, although the state does not require localities to do that.

“It was basically pitching your project idea to the village,” Konkoski said.

¯ Second, in the weeks before the state deadline, the DRI consulting team — made up engineering, architectural and assessing firms headed M.J. Engineering and Land Surveying — can further refine project proposals. The consulting team will work with project sponsors to refine their pitch, associated costs and feasibility, while identifying whether each project is right for the DRI or another form of grant funding.

¯ Lastly, the earlier deadline was to stockpile a group of projects in advance for the Local Planning Committee — a group of Saranac Lake public- and private-sector leaders who help oversee the DRI process — to choose from. The DRI grant is meant to reflect the community and its needs, Konkoski said.

“That’s why the DRI doesn’t have a blanket set of criteria,” Konkoski said. Instead, projects are gauged by the state along three criteria:

¯ shovel-readiness

¯ ability to leverage private dollars

¯ whether they can be completed in one to two years after summer 2019.

Projects are then judged alongside the community’s goals and strategies, and vision statement, which the LPC has been finalizing this month.

Konkoski said the 63 projects submitted by the deadline are subject to change. They could be fleshed out with the help of the consulting team, identified as more appropriate for a different kind of grant funding, dropped or consolidated.

Konkoski gave the example of a downtown facade. If a business owner had a shovel-ready plan to renovate the facade and submitted it for DRI funding, it may not make the cut. One facade may not attract much private spending or spur future investment. But if that proposal is folded into six other facade renovation projects and submitted as a request for one larger fund, that project may have better prospects, Konkoski said.

In addition, the list of project proposals could change as the state Consolidated Funding Application grants are announced in the coming weeks. The North Country Regional Economic Development Council’s 2018 progress report listed 17 projects that it would like funded as part of the CFA.

Two of these projects, a new location for Pendragon Theatre in Saranac Lake, and restoring Dr. E.L. Trudeau’s former home and office into a museum, are also priority projects for the DRI.

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The “confidential” projects

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Details concerning three “confidential” projects were inaccurate in an Enterprise article published Nov. 9 on concerning the Nov. 8 LPC meeting.

Konkoski said applicants for the projects — called B45, B46 and B47 — were in the process of selecting locations and finalizing deals, but were not going to make the village’s Nov. 2 deadline. Konkoski said she encouraged the sponsors to still submit applications in hopes in that they would be ready for the state’s Dec. 14 deadline. Konkoski said she — not the state, as the Enterprise reported on Nov. 9 — let the applicants withhold their identities and project details from the public for the rest of November.

“It was just trying to give everyone that has an idea a shot,” Konkoski said.

She said the state team members told her they were OK with withholding the details of the projects from the public as the applicants finalized their business.

“Since it was before the state deadline, it wasn’t really an issue for them,” Konkoski said.

“It wasn’t the state not being transparent.”

The village and state teams both know the details of the confidential projects, as does the consulting team. The DRI core team — made up of Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism CEO James McKenna, village Mayor Clyde Rabideau, village Manager John Sweeney and Deputy Mayor Paul Van Cott — was given access to the information after the Nov. 8 meeting.

Konkoski said she will know by the end of the week whether the projects are moving forward.

The next LPC meeting will be held Dec. 11 from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Harrietstown Town Hall auditorium.