Buffalo, NY – On Friday, December 15th Assembly Member Crystal Peoples-Stokes announced the 20 winners located in the 141st Assembly District of approved grants from Round 7 of the western New York Regional Economic Development Council (REDC). The awards, originally announced on Wednesday, December 13th in Albany by Governor Cuomo, include a total of $68.8 million awarded to 112 projects throughout the western New York region.

“Congratulations to all of this year’s awards recipients. Thank you for the work that you continue to do on the frontlines to move the City of Buffalo and the region forward. I’m proud to announce the levels of talent, creativity, expertise and innovation that can be found here in the 141st District. May you all have continued success and prosperity into the new year,” stated Assemblywoman Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes. A listing of the grants winners and project descriptions are below:

African Cultural Center - $600,000

The African American Center of Buffalo will renovate an existing facility to expand its theater, educational programming and teaching facilities on the East Side and create an Urban Cultural Campus of multi-cultural understanding and community collaboration.

Buffalo Employment & Training Center - $91,000

The Buffalo and Erie County Workforce Development Consortium will offer occupational skills training for eligible trainees to enable them to become Certified Production Technicians. Training results in 3 nationally recognized credentials, namely, the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council (MSSC) Certified Production Technician (CPT) certification; OSHA 10-hour Safety Certification; and Act Inc. Career-Readiness Credential.

Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences (Science Museum) - $85,500

Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences will host digiPlaySpace, a special exhibit that will expose the community to digital media arts and STEM career fields. This plan looks to increase marketing to a regional audience, ultimately helping to increase tourism to Erie County, the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo Museum of Science.

Catholic Health Systems - $6,397

Catholic Health System will provide eligible employees with training program in the fundamentals of pharmaceutical dispensing.

Center for Employment Opportunities - $100,000

Center for Employment Opportunities, Inc. will provide on-the-job training and transitional employment in construction, maintenance, and beautification services.

Central Terminal Restoration Corporation- $314,625

The Central Terminal Restoration Corp will complete Phase 1 of the Buffalo Central Terminal Concourse renovation. Phase 1 will restore the entry lobby vestibule doors intending to return the lobby to its 1929 appearance, restore windows, refabricating of doorways, and the install an HVAC system in the restaurant space to create a tempered environment. The goal is to create a first class banquet facility and regional events center.

City of Buffalo – Broadway Market - $120,000

The Broadway Market, a landmark and culturally diverse regional community marketplace in Buffalo, will undergo façade restoration and repair, new electrical upgrades and new building signage.

City of Buffalo – Seneca Corridor Streetscape - $500,000

A significant one-mile section of Seneca Street between Hamburg and Michigan Streets will be revitalized through the design and construction of infrastructure and streetscape improvements that will include sidewalk, street, and curb reconstruction, landscaping, street lighting, streetscape furnishings, and signage/way-finding elements.

Erie Community College - $100,000

Erie Community College (ECC) will train underemployed workers to work in the growing hospitality industry of brewing science. This Brewing Science and Service certificate program will provide trainees with the credentials and experience to earn employment in the hospitality industry, as well as with breweries, beer distributors, sales teams, grocery stores, and beverage centers.

Explore & More Children’s Museum - $75,000

Explore & More Children’s Museum will develop and implement a comprehensive marketing rollout in 2018 that will attract visitors to the region from Upstate New York, Southern Ontario and Northwest Pennsylvania. The marketing initiative will establish this tourism attraction as the cultural destination at Canalside while positioning it among the wealth of other family-friendly activities to do and see in the Western New York region.

Gerard Place - $435,000

Gerard Place will establish an Education and Community Center with extensive training space in the former St. Gerard Parish Hall and School, adjacent to its residential facility. Workforce training programs will strive to meet the region’s growing employment needs in the fields of healthcare, research and education.

Industrial Support Inc. - $240,000

Industrial Support Inc., a contract manufacturing and metal fabricating company, will install a dry room, a moisture free environment, necessary to house machinery used to extrude lithium cylinders into foil and to package desiccants.

Just Buffalo Literary Center - $73,000

WORDS ON THE STREET is a unique creative place making initiative designed to make the literary arts visible and participatory with outdoor public readings along the Literary Corridor, inspired by writers with ties to the region to highlight the talent that defined Western New York’s past and will shape its future.

Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority - $400,000

The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority's Linear Transit Green Hub project will increase safety and provide better access to public transportation through the creation of a seamless transition between two primary transit hubs along the Division Street corridor in downtown Buffalo. The project will mitigate stormwater runoff to a combined sewer system by disconnecting downspouts and directing stormwater to green infrastructure practices such as porous pavement and stormwater planters.

NYSARC Inc, Erie County Chapter (Heritage Centers) - $15,985

NYSARC's Erie County Chapter will train eligible IT Technician employees to obtain Microsoft Office MCSE Certification and eligible Direct Service employees in skills needed to advance toward Frontline Supervisor positions.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute - $ 1,000,000

Existing research facilities will be renovated to establish a new Division of Integrative Immuno-Oncology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) that will leverage RPCI's nationally recognized expertise in cancer biology and provide innovative immunogenomic therapies for patients.

Salvation Army- $100,000

The Salvation Army's Culinary Arts Training Program will teach students skills such as how to inspect and clean food preparation areas in order to ensure safe and sanitary food-handling practices; to store and cook food at the correct temperature; to check for the freshness of food and ingredients; how to season and cook food; knife skills, food terminology, kitchen safety standards, and communication skills between supervisors, teams, vendors, and customers.

Torn Space Theatre - $60,000

Torn Space’s RESPONSE Performance Festival invites local and international theater artists and scholars to build one bold, visceral community experience.

University at Buffalo (Center for Computational Research) - $1,000,000

University at Buffalo (UB) Center for Computational Research (CCR) will expand its high-performance computing (HPC) resource to provide WNY companies across industry sectors with access to advanced computing equipment that will foster innovation, reduce time to market and improve processes, with an emphasis on emerging technologies for data analytics.

WNY Book Arts Collaboration - $44,700

The Western New York Book Arts Collaboration will hire and train two part-time apprentices to study arts management and the programming and technical aspects of the book arts including binding, letterpress, screen printing, papermaking, and teaching.