Upstate New York Revival: Genius – or Common Sense?

November 5, 2010

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By Roberta Brandes Gratz
MT. MORRIS, N.Y. - In recent years, when Greg O'Connell looked down the Main Street of Mt. Morris, this upstate village of 3,000 in the middle of sprawling farms 40 miles south of Rochester, he saw vacant derelict buildings. Some had walls and roofs falling in or about to do so; most were abandoned or foreclosed by banks.
But now O'Connell sees a Main Street on its way to renewal, with restored buildings filled with new businesses and upstairs apartments. A small theater occupies a former storefront church.
"It was a ghost town," he said with a smile recently, as we ate a fabulous Italian dinner in a recently opened small owner-run restaurant. Nobody, however, had bothered - or had the funds - to tear down any of the classic 50-odd two story 19th century storefronts that were once fully occupied.
O'Connell saw what no one else did: the opportunity to revive a Main Street for small businesses in a parallel way to the waterfront in Brooklyn where he restored Civil War warehouses for small manufacturers. Now observers come from near and far to see this model of Main Street revitalization.
O'Connell bought and restored 19 buildings, lured new businesses, created 28 second-floor apartments, involved both the local high school and college and the larger community. Sales tax and real estate values have increased, banks have tentatively started making loans and residents, with new found hope, are investing in their properties in small ways. Main Street is reborn.
"This is not a rocket science," O'Connell says. "If you understand how the process works, this could happen in many small towns." Having a catalyst like O'Connell, however, surely helps. And catalysts come in many forms, such as the restoration of old theaters.
The business mix in Mount Morris is not what it was before WalMart, the malls and highway route 390 came through, making it possible to get to Rochester in less than one hour. But the mix is more interesting. The singular businesses are local people selling things they formerly made either in their kitchen or garage and now welcome the opportunity to open a store.
Jane's Pantry offers home made sauces, garlic pesto, mustard, peanut butter and spices. Varied eateries are scattered among antique and gift stores. A former gas station is being converted to a restaurant the way Ben & Jerry's started in a Burlington gas station. Two retired people opened the theater in a former storefront church. A woman moved her hair salon from home to Main Street and doubled her business. A sign maker brought his business from his garage.
In a day when the modus operandi for developers is to buy cheap, charge what the market will bear and get their money out quickly, O'Connell also buys low. But then passes savings from tax abatements and grant programs onto the tenants and charges only enough to break even (hopefully) at first.
"I'm in it for the long term," he says. Going slow, he adds, provides "the chance to build stability."
O'Connell got to know this historic farming county in the 1960s when he attended SUNY Geneseo. He knew then he would be buying farms (he does that too) and have a house in the area. But first he went back to Brooklyn, became a beat cop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and watched regeneration unfold in that iconic neighborhood.
"I could see people wanting to come back to live in the city," he says. But he couldn't afford to buy on the West Side so he scouted Brooklyn to find an affordable brownstone ("a wreck for $4,000″) in Cobble Hill where he still lives. He continued to buy and fix up properties, as savings permitted.
None of what O'Connell has done is as easy as tearing down what exists and building a new mall tenanted with national chains. "The art of retail has effectively been lost in so many places," says Louise Wadsworth, director of both downtown revitalization and micro-enterprise programs for the Alliance for Business Growth for Livingston and Wyoming Counties. Once a successful gift and camera shop owner in nearby Geneseo, Wadsworth learned the art from her mother. "Passing the art down doesn't seem to happen anymore," she says. She has worked with O'Connell, given him ideas, introduced him to local officials and community people.
Through the Alliance, the county provides 50 per cent matching grants for façade restoration and signage. The visual is key, says Wadsworth. O'Connell requires tenants to create appealing window displays, to change them four times a year, to leave a light on at night and to have an attractive sign.
The potential is beyond measure, says Wadsworth. "So many businesses are being run out of people's houses," she says.
Mount Morris' early history of farms, canning factories (one is left), salt mines and railroads is not replicable. The trick is to stimulate a new economy without trying to lure distant big companies with over-sized incentives that never guarantee long-term success.
"There is so much creative opportunity in many small towns like this," O'Connell says. Undoubtedly, he will move on to another one after Mount Morris.
Roberta Brandes Gratz is an urban critic and author of the newly published The Battle For Gotham: New York In the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, 2010, Nation Books. This article originally appeared on citiwire.net.