The August 10 pre-application email to Empire State Development’s Finger Lakes office initially landed in spam. A follow-up phone call to the regional office recovered the thread, and staff marked the message as not junk so future mail should route normally.
Today we got the first substantive reply from Finger Lakes REDC leadership. That is a real Step 1 win: the office has the inquiry, and the conversation is live.
What they asked
- More detail on the concept itself
- Whether this has been developed in partnership with the City of Rochester
- Whether we have engaged the High Falls State Park design process
They also flagged an open question: RMTI may or may not be the right funding vehicle, and the idea might belong in the High Falls State Park design conversation as well as (or instead of) a standalone RMTI ask.
How we read it
Not a rejection. Not an award. It is useful gatekeeping: City partnership and park-process fit are now explicit next checkpoints before CFA work. That matches what we already assumed about site control on Pont de Rennes and park adjacency.
What’s next
- Reply with a tight concept brief and honest status on City / park contacts (no overclaiming)
- Keep the City outreach draft ready, now with clearer reason to engage DES
- Treat High Falls State Park design coordination as a parallel track, not an afterthought
- Still no CFA until applicant structure and site consent are real