Help Wappingers Falls Win HGTV Home Town Takeover

It takes a village, they say, and the Village of Wappingers is looking for just that in the form of help from the community to aid in their campaign to win an HGTV Home Town Takeover - their biggest renovation project ever.

The application/nomination process is quite simple, and takes less than 5 minutes.  You will need to submit photos, and a 10 second video about the town, and where it asks for population information please use 5,500 as the number.  Should you want some help with the submission process, swing by the American Legion (7 Spring Street in Wappingers) on Monday 1/27/2020 at 7pm for a forum hosted by Courtney Kolb, who runs the @wappingersrises instagram page, and is Chair of the Economic Development Committee.  She is a major influence behind the campaign and had the following to say:

Please consider this as the village needs some love - the heart of the business district East Main lost 2 buildings after a fire in the 50s, 1 building lost due to collapse in 2012, 3 buildings under renovation after a 2017 fire, and West Main has 4 vacant buildings left unoccupied for years. While there is a plan for these unoccupied buildings it would be great to get a jump start from HGTV. In addition to commercial spaces we are waiting on the work to begin for our Community Center Boathouse and Welcome Center Cobbler Shop from grant money, both of which could use the help of HGTV.

We also had the chance to chat with Adam Lauricella, local resident, planning board member, and owner of Graceland Tattoo in the Village.

I think the HGTV Home Town Takeover is a tremendous opportunity for the Village of Wappinger Falls and people who work and live here.  In spite of the vacant land and properties that have become blight on the neighborhood people continue to stay in the village and fight for its success. People are moving here and setting up shop. We’ve seen a pretty significant resurgence in small business creation up and down Main Street. Families are moving in and there’s a new push to create something special.

...but there is still so much work ahead of us.  Huge projects that take real resources but will create significant gains for the right investors, if things are done properly. And there’s a small group of us who are always jockeying to position the Village of Wappingers as the next big thing. Largely because we are proud of where we come from, were proud of our neighbors and we root for their success. We always seem to have hope we believe in ourselves. But as a whole the people of this Village have true grit and some help from outside influences could make all the difference right now. It’s a long shot, but having HGTV here to help us with a Makeover would be something for the history books.

Follow the conversation and HGTV campaign updates on the Village of Wappingers Falls facebook page and don't forget to submit an application here!

As a Wappingers resident myself I think this is an amazing way to bring the community together for an excellent cause, let's do this!