LAKE PLACID — The Adirondack Mountain Club is now more financially prepared to begin renovations at the ADK Welcome Center after being awarded a more than $300,000 federal grant on Wednesday.
The Northern Border Regional Commission’s $4.1 million grant package also carved out $350,000 for Historic Saranac Lake to rehabilitate the historic Trudeau Building and $675,452 to Paul Smith’s College for improvements to its wastewater and drinking water systems.
ADK’s $303,960 grant from the NBRC’s State Economic & Infrastructure Development fund will put a large dent in a $380,195 renovation project at the former Cascade Ski Center. ADK Director of Communications Ben Brosseau said this grant will help the club install a lighting system along its ski trails, improve wayfinding and other signage for the center’s trail network and install fiber optics in the building. Brosseau said that this project and the grant ADK received are one piece of a funding “puzzle” that the club is navigating to support all of its renovation projects.
Brosseau said that ADK is hoping to find at least $3 million in funding for renovations at the center, and the club has raised about a third of that so far.
ADK has received several grants for the welcome center, including the $500,000 state grant that helped the club purchase the $2.1 million property. The state Department of Environmental Conservation awarded ADK $47,000 earlier this year for hiking information stewards and a portable toilet at the center for the summer. ADK also sold its Lake George headquarters for $800,000 earlier this summer, and the club planned to use a portion of that sale to help pay for the welcome center.
This summer, Brosseau said ADK has been busy with building renovations and preparing for the ski season. He said the club recently got a side-by-side mower so they can start mowing the ski trails and open the trails up to skiers by late October or early November.
ADK purchased Cascade in February with plans to transform the seasonal ski center into a year-round recreational and educational facility that would allow ADK to expand its classroom space and provide information to hikers while still offering some of the skiing and snowshoeing experiences that Cascade was known for. ADK reopened the center as the Cascade Welcome Center in June.
HSL is restoring the Trudeau Building at Main and Church streets in Saranac Lake, a property HSL bought in 2019 with plans to convert it into a museum. HSL Executive Director Amy Catania said abatement at the property is done, and once this grant is administered and approved, HSL plans to put out bids for interior and exterior construction at the beginning of 2023.
HSL estimated that the project — between buying the building, construction and exhibit installation — will cost around $5.2 million. Catania said on Thursday that HSL has raised nearly $4.5 million between private donors, foundation grants, state grants, tax credit financing and the $350,000 federal grant.
Catania said HSL thinks it has the funding it needs to pay for construction and the exhibits, so HSL hopes to start planning for expansions for its museum exhibits at the Trudeau Building and its sister museum, the Trudeau Laboratory, this fall. She said HSL got another grant to support that work, and HSL has a team of people, including historians and exhibit professionals, to plan museum exhibits for both buildings.
Dan Kelting, vice president for research and executive director of the PSC Adirondack Watershed Insititute, shared excerpts with the Enterprise from the application Paul Smith’s College submitted for its $844,315 revamp to the college’s wastewater and drinking systems. The project plan is to replace around 12,000 lineal feet of sewer lines and water distribution piping, and the college was ultimately awarded $675,452 from the NBRC.
The main sanitary sewer lines and water distribution pipes on the campus were installed in 1946, according to the application, and they’ve passed their “50-year usable life.” A visual inspection of the sewer lines in 2019 revealed several near-breaks along the main lines running through the campus to the college’s wastewater treatment plant, according to the application. The college plans to replace the lines with HDPE plastic piping. The New York state Department of Health also inspected the PSC’s drinking water distribution system and recommended that the college begin replacing those lines.
The improved lines will help the college budget “with greater confidence,” according to the application, since unplanned infrastructure repairs often divert funds from the college’s programs and other investments.
“This new infrastructure enhances the foundational security of the college as it can plan forward without the threat that these vital systems could fail at any moment,” the application reads.
Kelting said the college hopes to complete the project in summer 2023 while students are on break since it will involve “extensive excavation” across the campus. He said that once the college gets the green light from NBRC, permitting and engineering design phases would be able to start later this year.
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