Paul Szmal: FLX Morning rolls on here at 839, temperature at 11, sunny skies, but still that chill in the air that makes it feel like single digits this morning. Well, welcome back to the show here, Jonathan Taylor, the mayor of the village of Newark, it's with us a little while ago, and it's back this morning. How are you, Jonathan? How are you this morning?
Johnathan Taylor: Good. Good morning. How are you, Paul?
Paul Szmal: Doing great. Doing great.
The last time you and I had a chance to talk, we were talking about the DRI projects that had been awarded the grant money. Where do we stand in that process?
Johnathan Taylor: So all of the projects are moving forward nicely. The Coventry Commons projects, which is 101 new apartment units and the old Harrison Street building, formerly CH Stewart Company and Sarah Coventry, they are almost done with completely done with the third floor. Many people have driven by and I'm able to see the new windows that have been put in. They have big, beautiful windows with a lot of natural light. The apartments are going to be really, really nice. And certainly we, not only in the village of Newark, but the county and the region and the state, we need more housing. And this is going to be a great option that's going to be hopefully ready to open by the fall of 2026.
The St. Elizabeth Hospital, the old St. Elizabeth Hospital hasn't been occupied since 1998. They've applied for their building permit. They have all their other permitting taken care of, and hopefully they'll go to construction soon and that'll be eight or nine market rate apartments to add more housing to downtown village. So we're really excited about those two projects and the opportunities for some new housing in the community.
The T. Spencer Knight Park upgrades, which is going to include a kayak launch, an amphitheater that we'll be able to have our, when we have our events in the park, bands will be able to use that. When we have free music on the Erie every Friday night in the summertime, they'll use the amphitheater. And it will also give the opportunity for schools to have band chorus and potentially dramas and musicals in an outdoor venue. So really excited about that. That is in the final design. We're expecting to let that for bidding sometime this winter, probably near February and then hopefully in construction soon early in the spring and have it completed by the end of 2026.
The health and wellness centers moving forward, we're getting ready to, to open up a capital campaign to help with costs for programming and for the venue itself. This is a pretty exciting project. The village of Newark really took a regional approach to all of our projects and what would help improve the entire region, not just the village and the county. And this facility is going to have a 200 meter indoor track with seating, the capability to host high school track meets there, section five, the Wayne Finger Lakes League, and also the opportunity for schools to come to Newark and be able to practice. Most schools now, especially in our region, when they have indoor track practices, it's in the hallways and the kids really can't practice events like hurdles and long jump and triple jump and high jump and pole vault because they just don't have the facilities to do that. And so this will bring something to the region that everyone can use.
It will also house our Alex Eli Community Center. They've expanded programming and that's the, the kind of push to have a capital campaign for both the building construction of the building and for further programming for our community center. And we'll have gym space with pickleball, volleyball, basketball, and also turf space for all the turf sports to practice on. And turf sports like soccer and lacrosse will be able to play games. So we're really excited about those DRI projects. They're all moving forward. 2026 is certainly going to be a busy year in the village, a lot of construction going on, a lot of exciting things happening, and 2027 will have a definitely different look than it does today.
Paul Szmal: Sounds like you're busy now.
Johnathan Taylor: We are. We are. There's a couple of infrastructure projects going on too. So it's, you know, we're always moving.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. It's got to be a pretty significant undertaking just managing all of these projects and their various stages of, you know, development and progress.
Johnathan Taylor: Yeah, it absolutely is. And each one has a different funding agency and many times different rules and guidelines and things that you need to follow depending on what the project is. So it can definitely be challenging. We have a great team that makes sure that we administer the grants correctly that go along with these projects. And we have some great developers on the private projects that are doing a great job. So it really takes a village and we certainly have one that's making these things happen.
Paul Szmal: Newark Mayor Jonathan Taylor joining us here on FLX Morning. You referenced how one location is going to be home of the Alex Ely Community Center. I understand that there were some programming grants that have been acquired for it.
Johnathan Taylor: Yeah, they've received a few grants now and they vary in size. One from Del Lago for a couple hundred dollars for the annual Christmas party at the community center. There's a range from the county that are going to allow for some mentoring programs, some tutoring programs. The largest one was with Delphi Rise. It's going to be $250,000 a year for five years. They're going to have full-time staff at the community center. There's going to be a safe space for kids to do just to gather and do different things other than sports because not everybody wants to use community center for sports. We want to be able to offer other options and through these grants we have those opportunities and really an opportunity to help youth outside of school, keeping them active, giving them help with schoolwork, giving them help if they're having issues at home or with other students or whatever the case may be. Now they have those adults to mentor, to really look to, to get advice and to help them through these things.
Paul Szmal: Now within the offices of the Village of Newark, there is a new deputy clerk and treasurer.
Johnathan Taylor: Yeah, yep, Brandon Smith came on board with us two months ago. He has really taken on the job and done really well. The deputy clerk treasurer position is not an easy position and for someone to step in that doesn't have experience in the municipal world, that's a big leap. Brandon has a ton of experience in the private sector, both management and ownership of companies, but to make the leap over to municipal work and do what Brandon is doing is not easy and he's done a phenomenal job and we're really looking forward as he grows in that position and what the future may hold.
Paul Szmal: I'm sure he is hip deep in these projects that you've been talking about, the DRI projects, as you are.
Johnathan Taylor: Yeah, it takes a lot of our staff to administer the projects and keep up with the grants. So Lynette is really, Morrison is really the lead, the clerk treasurer, and then whenever she needs any assistance on the administrative side, certainly Brandon is going to be right there as he learns the ropes of everything going on in the village.
Paul Szmal: I wanted to ask you too about Joe, the code enforcement officer. I don't want to butcher the pronunciation of his last name.
Johnathan Taylor: Oh, you know, Joe Vanni.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, no problem. Joe Vanni. He's been with us for almost a year.
Johnathan Taylor: Joe has really stepped up. We had a retirement of a code enforcement officer and Joe is kind of on his own for a little bit. We have part-time. Roger Vandermortel actually is retiring. He's been with us for 19 years and he's retiring at the end of the month. Roger's been a great piece to our team in the village, but as the village has grown and all these projects have come along, there's been a tremendous amount more work for our code enforcement department to handle from building construction and other things, construction inspections and things that need to take place and various projects.
Joe really stepped up and really helped us out in a time where we were looking for someone to help come in and help take the load, and we've been able to do that. We've hired Dave LeDuc as a building inspector, so now we have a team of two full-time and one part-time until the end of the year, and then we'll start having discussions about where we go from there, but Joe's done a great job and we're really looking forward to having him on the team for years to come.
Paul Szmal: In the midst of everything that is going on, all these construction projects and designing grant acquisitions and all this stuff, you did find time to have the village holiday celebration.
Johnathan Taylor: Yeah, and I always talk about our team, and our team goes beyond our staff. We have members of the community that really step up to make things happen, and that's the most difficult part because we can have a lot of ideas, but if we don't have people to make it happen, it doesn't. And the Home for the Holidays Committee is a committee now of about 15 people. We've expanded what that committee does. It started out as a taste of Wayne County and then went into the lighted parade and tree lighting ceremony. This year, we added a Halloween trunk or tree to our list of things that we're doing, and that committee really puts a lot of thought into decorations, and some of the committee even gets involved in making decorations, but the committee has really created a vision, and I can't say enough about what our Department of Public Works has done to make that vision come to life. We have some great people there that have taken a vision for whether it's Halloween or Christmas and really made it come to life.
So yeah, we, you know, this year was the second annual lighted parade. It was so amazing to stand on the stage and look up and down Main Street and see people, you know, five, six, seven, eight people deep watching the parade, and that parade route was about almost a mile, and all the way along it, there were either people sitting in their cars in parking spaces or out sitting on their vehicles watching the parade, and it was a really great event. I think it's become one of my favorite days of the year in the Village as far as all the work that we do. This is one of the great days, and it's exciting, and we just hope to keep building on it from year to year.
Paul Szmal: Now, it sounds like it has been a great experience so far that is only going to get better as time goes on. Jonathan, thank you for joining us here this morning. Hope you have a wonderful holiday, you and the rest of the crew in the Village offices.
Johnathan Taylor: Thank you. You too, as well.
Paul Szmal: 850 on FLX Morning.
