West Main Street Rochester Revitalization Awards 22 Grants as Busy Bee Celebrates Its Return

The Busy Bee has been at 124 W. Main Street since the 1930s. This week, it celebrated a grand reopening — the most visible early result of a West Main Street Rochester revitalization effort that awarded $10 million in grants to 22 storefronts along one of the city's oldest commercial corridors. The groundbreaking ceremony was held October 21.

Busy Bee Restaurant's Grand Reopening on West Main Street

Busy Bee Restaurant's Grand Reopening on West Main Street

Busy Bee at 124 W. Main has been in downtown Rochester since the 1930s and at its current location since the 1980s — close to a century in the same neighborhood. Rochester has been through a lot in those decades: demographic shifts, factory closures, urban renewal projects that demolished as much as they built. Busy Bee held its address through all of it.

A business that stays that long earns something: the trust of people who have been eating there for forty years, the institutional memory of a block, the kind of loyalty that is built over generations rather than cultivated through marketing. Busy Bee is among the 22 storefronts receiving grants through the West Main Gateway project. The grand reopening this week is the first public milestone on a corridor with 21 more to follow.

How the West Main Street Rochester Revitalization Grant Program Works

How the West Main Street Rochester Revitalization Grant Program Works

The program is a $10 million public-private partnership: $5 million from New York State's Regional Revitalization Program and $5 million from the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation, administered by OneROC. Grants range from $25,000 to $250,000 and cover up to 90% of eligible project costs over a three-year window. The corridor runs from West Genesee Street to South Plymouth Avenue.

The 22 awarded projects are expected to pull in more than $3.3 million in additional public and private investment beyond the grants themselves. "The public-private Regional Revitalization Program initiative is serving as a model for cities across the nation," Governor Kathy Hochul said at the groundbreaking. OneROC President and CEO Joe Stefko described the local effort: "OneROC has led the strategy and coordination required to put that model into action along West Main Street." All 22 grants have been awarded. The first funding round is closed.

Other Storefronts Getting Work Done

Other Storefronts Getting Work Done

The 22 projects span businesses and nonprofits the length of the corridor. Grant scopes vary — some cover facade and window work, others fund structural repairs before winter — but the theory behind the program is straightforward. When multiple storefronts get attention in the same season on the same street, the change reads to people at street level in a way that a single renovation never does.

"Our hope is that these improvements will encourage more people to explore West Main Street, discover its history."

— Dawn Noto, President, Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood Association

All 22 grants are awarded and work is underway. Busy Bee is open at 124 W. Main. The stretch between West Genesee and South Plymouth is the one to watch this season.