Paint supply retailer Benjamin Moore & Co., based in Montvale, N.J., has hired a Rockland County contractor for a revitalization project in Nyack, the first of 20 communities nationwide chosen for a facelift in its business district.
Within the next three to four weeks, Benjamin Moore’s contractor, Michael Spilotras, owner of Spilotras Painting Ltd. in Chestnut Ridge, will apply fresh coats of paint to the exteriors of 20 businesses on Main Street between North Broadway and Cedar Street.
Due to inclement weather, the kickoff event scheduled for Monday was postponed until Wednesday. Benjamin Moore representatives met with village of Nyack Mayor Jen White at City Hall to discuss the logistics of the project. Work will begin Tuesday, with Koblin’s Pharmacy, 96 Main St., the first to receive a touch-up.
“We are a very active business district that was severely hit by Sandy,” White said. “It did a lot of damage, and it was tough on small businesses. This project is going to be a real boon for the community and increase the interest and the foot traffic in the downtown.”
The mayor said the last time Nyack had a major renovation project was in the 1970s. Since then, the only renovations on Main Street were at Harbor Hill, a three-story American restaurant that reconstructed its exterior nearly seven years ago.
Nyack last year added new streetlights and benches and repaved the roads and sidewalks. But the mayor said even a small-scale project like that took eight years of planning. Approval came quickly for the Benjamin Moore project compared to what could have been another extended wait process, White said.
Koblin’s Pharmacy store manager Chuck Travers said a pharmacy has existed at the site since the 1800s. In 1934, Koblin’s Pharmacy became a family-run business owned by David Koblin and was passed down to Jerry Koblin in 1967.
“This renovation project is great for Nyack, especially in a tough economic time, to refresh the storefront,” said Travers, a Nyack native. “We just repainted the whole front of the building last year and replaced the awning. Benjamin Moore is now going to freshen up our storefront with the same color scheme – federal blue and dark blue.”
Benjamin Moore chief marketing officer David Melançon said the project gives both downtown retailers and business owners supplying the project a chance to partner together. The Benjamin Moore business at 124 Main St. will provide some of the paint to re-coat the infrastructures in the downtown. Altogether, the project calls for 120 gallons of paint to re-coat all the first-floor exteriors of businesses.
“We’ll be offering further discounts to other businesses not on Main Street that want to repaint their storefronts,” Melançon said. “We’re also giving seminars on how to grow businesses through partnering organizations and providing communities with plans for resilience in the face of natural disasters.”
The project is set to be completed by Oct. 4 with a celebratory event taking place on Main Street following the renovation.
Nyack was chosen first among the other cities based on its proximity to Benjamin Moore’s New Jersey headquarters.
“There was no ranking of one through 20,” said Kimberlee Bradshaw, director of corporate communications at Benjamin Moore. “We”™re rolling it out in terms of the work being done in Nyack first because we want to start near our headquarters and also end near home  in Sea Bright, New Jersey towards the beginning of next summer.”
Benjamin Moore representatives reached out to over 100 communities that were close to any of its retail stores and asked the local governments and businesses if they wanted to nominate their city for the competition. After Benjamin Moore launched its competition on www.paintwhatmatters.com, around 800 cities nominated themselves. In the end, the 20 were chosen based on the number of votes cast from May to June.
“You could do one vote per day,” Bradshaw said. “What was great about this campaign was you saw people vote for towns they didn”™t live in.”
What about hiring a Rockland County Painter to do the work?