When gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo was reminded about a project he initiated as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that should have benefitted the Penn Yan area economy, he was disappointed to learn the project failed and the former boat manufacturing site is now at the center of a drawn-out waterfront revitalization effort.
Cuomo, in Penn Yan Thursday evening on his "The Drive for a New NY" tour, spoke very briefly with the media on his way from Milly's Pantry to his idling recreational vehicle.
When he was told about the state of the former Penn Yan Marine Manufacturing site, he appeared interested and said he would like to see the waterfront sometime. "That's a shame," he commented about the failed project.
In the late 1990s, when he was HUD secretary, Cuomo funneled millions of dollars to a project to revitalize the New York Canal system. The funds were earmarked for developments and improvements in several canal communities between Albany and Buffalo.
Locally, federal funds were slated to be handed over to Penn Yan Marine Manufacturing owners Camille and Thomas Amato so the company could build a new line of canal boats.
Soon after design and production of the new boats began, however, the Amatos defaulted on loan payments due to the Yates County Industrial Development Agency and Yates County took over ownership of the property for non-payment of taxes.
Over the past eight years, Yates County officials have been working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to establish a plan to clean up the 14-acre site which is considered a brownfield. The site is a major portion of the area that county, village and town officials would like to see developed into resort/residential use.
The Amatos left town to open a new boat building facility in North Carolina in 2001, but within months that enterprise failed as well.
