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ROTTERDAM
Hamburg Street shopping for ideas Upper Union Street BID seen as model
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

   When searching for ideas to improve Hamburg Street, Frank DePalma is looking east toward upper Union Street in Schenectady.
   The co-chair of the fledgling Hamburg Street Merchants Association is scheduled to meet with Michael Mastroianni, who was instrumental in the creation of the Upper Union Street Business Improvement District. The special assessment district is largely credited for a host of improvements and events that have brought renewed commercial interest to a strip between Garner Avenue and the city line.
   “We’re going to see what kind of ideas they have,” said DePalma, the owner of DePalma’s Screen Printing and Embroidery on Hamburg Street.
   DePalma said the talks are aimed at generating ideas for improving the condition and business through the mixed-use corridor between Curry Road and Altamont Avenue. Since January, members of the merchants association have lobbied town and county officials for help in improving the street, where roughly 70 businesses are located.
   “We’re not going to let them forget about it,” he said. “We’re not going to let this die.”
   Business owners have called for a greater police presence, improved lighting, and perhaps even a sewer hookup, which many cite as the underlying reason Hamburg Street has fallen behind Altamont Avenue. The merchants are hoping to gain a bit of savvy from Mastroianni’s experiences on Union Street to help touch off improvements in Rotterdam.
   In November 2001, upper Union Street formed a business improvement district that now includes 65 properties and more than 90 businesses. Business owners are annually assessed a property value-based fee, which is then funneled into a fund used for everything from street improvements to street festivals.
   “It’s to control your own destiny,” Mastroianni said of the BID formation. “It’s a great opportunity for local businesses to promote their cause.”
   On upper Union Street, the special assessment has helped bring events to the district such as last week’s Strawberry Festival, as well as a weekly farmers’ market. The BID has also aided in gaining facade improvement grants through the state, Mastroianni said.
   “We just keep on going forward so when they hear upper Union Street, they know where to go,” he said.
   DePalma admits upper Union Street and Hamburg Street are fairly different in their makeup. While the upper Union Street is a densely commercial area with amenities such as sidewalks, Hamburg Street has a more dispersed collection of businesses that lack even a sewer connection.
   But DePalma believes the merchants’ association can gain valuable insight from Mastroianni. Even if the merchants association decides against forming a special assessment district, he said they can use Mastroianni’s input to develop ideas that might breath new life to Hamburg Street.
   The priority now for the merchants association is to get input and participation from the businesses on the street. DePalma said the organization will host its monthly meeting at the Rotterdam Senior Center on July 2 with the hope of getting more business owners involved.
   “The more the count [of businesses], the bigger the body, the more we can get done,” he said.

MEREDITH L. KAISER/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
Frank DePalma, owner of DePalma’s Screenprinting and Embroidery on Hamburg Street in Rotterdam, stands Tuesday next to a screenprinting press at his shop. DePalma is cochairman of the Hamburg Street Merchants Association.

Quoted from bumblethru

Can I tell you that there have been some landowners on Hamburg St that have been approached about selling their land. It's done through realestate companies but with the prospects being annonymous. Hmmmm....Interesting!

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Main Entry: 2metropolitan
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin metropolitanus of the see of a metropolitan, from metropolita, noun, metropolitan, from Late Greek mEtropolitEs, from mEtropolis see of a metropolitan, from Greek, capital
1 : of or constituting a metropolitan or his see
2 : of, relating to, or characteristic of a metropolis and sometimes including its suburbs
3 : of, relating to, or constituting a mother country as distinguished from a colony

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Main Entry: -plex
Function: noun combining form
Etymology: partly from Latin -plex (as in duplex); partly from complex
1 : a figure of a given power
2 : a building divided into an often specified number of spaces (as apartments or movie theaters)