$3.9 million dollar grant<\/a> from the state helped fund a majority of the $7.73 million project.<\/p>\nA spokesperson for the state said that money comes from pre-existing capital resources, meaning there will be no additional cost to taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Park-goers react<\/p>\n
So what do park-goers think of the cost?<\/p>\n
\u201cI see money going to things that I kind of question, but I think they can invest money in this park or other parks even,\u201d Hickey said.<\/p>\n
Annette Hickey has been coming to Highland Park for as long as she can remember. She has a tree dedicated to her dad at the park.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he passed away, it was important for me to do that because he and I used to come walking here, and we would look at birds and trees and everything,\u201d Hickey said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s not the only one in favor of the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the idea of anything to enrich the youth. Get them outdoors,\u201d said Neal Ruparelia, a Rochester resident.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be awesome. I think it would be a great use of the space, and I think it would attract a lot more people to the park,\u201d said Tony Zhang, another Rochester resident.<\/p>\n
Longtime coming<\/p>\n
No one is more excited about the return of the pavilion than JoAnne Beck of the Highland Park Conservancy, who\u2019s been working on this for 20 years. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt will have the same shape and scale and character as the original, but it will be, handicapped accessible,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will have an elevator.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beck said the original plan was for $3 million. But when it went to bid, the final cost was more than $7.7 million and looked dead in the water until the state\u2019s $4 million donation.<\/p>\n
Funding breakdown<\/p>\n
The project is also covered by $1.03 million from Monroe County, approximately $2.8 million in grants and private support, including $1.03 million raised by the Highland Park Conservancy, $500,000 from NYS Parks Environmental Protection Fund, $500,000 from Empire State Development\u2019s County Infrastructure Grant Program, and $500,000 from the State Legislature. <\/p>\n
When asked whether the $4 million could have gone somewhere else, Beck said, \u201cEverybody says that all the time, no matter what the proposal is. But, you know, but we have had thousands of individual donors and local foundations that have contributed to this, have not only wanted to see it happen, but have contributed to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
News10NBC spoke with one couple who said they were hesitant to see all those tax dollars being used for the pavilion, but they didn\u2019t want to go on camera. <\/p>\n
The three-story pavilion is expected to open in early 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 A historic Rochester landmark is set to make its return after 60 years. The Children\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-289962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}