Today, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced that at his urging, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has reached a formal enhanced use lease agreement with Cadence Square Housing Development in Canandaigua, which will allow them to maintain their projected timeline and break ground in October. With this long-awaited lease agreement, the Cadence Square Housing development can move forward with plans to renovate the now vacant Building 14 at the Canandaigua VA Medical Center (VAMC) and construct an adjacent new building into affordable housing for homeless and at-risk veterans and their families. The project developers initially reached out to Schumer out of concern that negotiations over the enhanced use lease agreement for this project were stalled and could jeopardize government tax credits secured to fund the project. Today's news means that this new living center can continue to move towards construction. This project is part of the VA's Building Utilization Review and Repurposing (BURR) Initiative to identify and repurpose unused VA land buildings in support of the VA’s goal to end Veteran’s homelessness.
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