Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Mark Frost, Chronicle Editor
The City of Glens Falls is thinking big about the possibilities for the $4.5-million Market Center it plans to build on South Street as the centerpiece of its $10-million grant from the New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative.
Meeting with the public at Crandall Public Library Friday morning, Sept. 30, Mayor Bill Collins and his leadership team set out to reassure Farmers Market supporters.
“I promise you this will be their home. I can promise you, they’ll be in that area every Saturday….They are the most important and the anchor tenant.”
But the mayor also sketched big possibilities for other uses of the Market Center — and beyond.
Mayor Collins said he suggested to LARAC and Zonta in conjunction with the June Arts Festival, “Let’s have an arts contest and ask artists from all over the country to create art. You’ve got all weekend long. You have to create it on site, in public, to win $10,000. Let it be juried.
“They thought that was great. They’ve actually had ideas like that in the past, but they haven’t been able to” do it.
Musically, said the mayor, “How do we bring back the events that we had in Glens Falls in the 1980s, when you had The Who and the Grateful Dead and all these different bands” that performed at the Glens Falls Civic Center (now the Cool Insuring Arena)?
Mayor Collins asked the audience “if any of you know the name Drew FitzGerald, who grew up in Glens Falls” and has had a career “in New York City and LA and working on arts and music events.”
Mr. FitzGerald facilitated JUST Water locating in Glens Falls and the investment by stars Jaden and Will Smith and Queen Latifah in the company.
The Mayor said he asked Mr. FitzGerald about Glens Falls drawing major musical acts again.
“And he said, ‘Well, really, there’s no way to bring that back alone at the Civic Center. What you need is a big regional music festival, where the Civic Center is the crown jewel of several events.’
“And so we’re talking about a music festival that includes downtown that eventually, over time, will include East Field or Warren County Airport to make it a regional music festival that would then be able to get a headliner to be home at the Civic Center.” Then there’s Taste of the North Country. The mayor acknowledged that the Kiwanis Club’s food festival had to cancel this year for lack of restaurants able to participate, but he says he’s told them, “we want to turn this into a multiple day event, maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We need to get Rachael Ray to take this commercial kitchen that’s going to be in the bottom of this [redeveloped incubator building].
“We need to bring restaurants from all over” the country.
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