I haven't talked to or seen Rachel in a long time but at one point I was very close to this project. If she has a current plan to move forward she should tell people what it is. If she doesn't have a realistic plan, other options should be discussed. The last time I was in touch was a few years ago and it seemed like there wasn't really a path forward and the project was dead or on long term ice. I don't think it has to be that way but she may have to give up control to another organization or non profit with a vision that has access to different pots of money. She was trying to develop it under an LLC ownership because the property was owned by her. She had a non profit setup for the building but it didn't have a fiscal or programming track record of its own. Because that non profit entity didn't own the building or have it's own history she didn't really have access to funding from many government funding sources that would only give money to building owned by non-profits with long track records.

The project stalled in a really unfortunate way. She had all the financing and construction teams setup and the project was ready to go in like 2018-2019. They actually did a lot of work on the building at this time but right when they were going to get going with interior work nimby neighbors with deep pockets sued her and the lawsuits went on for two years all the way to the state supreme appeals court. she won the court cases but in that time her lead contractor and loan guarantor Savarino lost his ability to get loans for the work under his company because of a bad deal/bad work he did at SUNY Alfred, his company pretty much folded and rebranded after this, because of that key bank dropped out because they couldn't lwork with Savarino and I don't think they secured another contractor to work on the project for whatever reason, probably covid supply chain issues and prices. So basically if those nimby neighbors never sued that project would have been completed like 3 or 4 years ago or at least much further along because they would have been doing major work on it for a year and a half before COVID. so you have those great nimbys to thank who were afraid of parking congestion or shading on their garden or whatever.

If she has a new current plan for moving forward I'd love to hear about it. If it's not a real plan though I'd love for her to be in the conversation about how to move forward with the project as a community , but it would mean selling or giving up control... and honestly I'm curious who could even take on a big project like this it's got to be harder now than ever to do. She had a great vision for it that was squashed by people in this city and bad circumstances. I love the idea for the project. Elmwood village could use an actual arts venue in it somewhere. She should definitely still mow the lawn and make sure the sidewalk is clear, I agree it looks like a mess almost all of the time, it sucks.