WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – A multi-million dollar facelift to Clayton’s downtown is complete. State and local officials capped it off with a ribbon cutting Tuesday.
The two year project transformed the village’s streets in a team effort between the community and New York’s Department of Transportation.
The DOT commissioner was in Clayton to put the exclamation point on the work.
“It is complete,” said Marie Therese Dominguez.
A ribbon cutting right on Riverside Drive was the highlight of Tuesday’s ceremony.
Mayor Norma Zimmer is happy with the final product.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
The work beautified village streets and sidewalks, buried utility wires underground, and upgraded the water and sewer infrastructure.
All this was done in two years with a projected price tag of around $9.3 million.
“And it was done under budget and on time. So, those are two milestones that we made,” said Zimmer.
Zimmer says this project was only possible because of New York DOT.
The department’s commissioner says she’s proud they could help improve Clayton.
“You all have a gem of a community and we’re just very grateful that we could participate,” she said.
The project started in 2019, with a good amount of the work getting done during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. But, Zimmer says that might have helped move the project along.
“They were way ahead of schedule during the COVID portion,” she said.
Zimmer says this past summer was one of the busiest the community has seen and she thinks the next tourism season could be just as bustling as people come back to see how the project turned out.
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