Seven years ago, Jamestown and Oswego made news as two of the first 10 cities in New York to receive $10 million through the Downtown Revitalization Initiative.

Oswego officials have spent their last DRI dollar, celebrating last week with state officials at an indoor water park that received a chunk of Oswego’s DRI funding. Other projects in Oswego included two housing developments, a mixed-used gateway development, renovations to the Children’s Museum of Oswego, transition of Oswego’s oldest building into housing and a restaurant, improvements to the city’s riverwalk and creation of a pocket park; another mixed-use development that includes housing, retail space and a restaurant, creation of a downtown improvement fund and a Complete Streets makeover of a downtown bridge.

“This success story can serve as an example for other communities as we look to the future of our DRI and NY Forward programs and continue working to build a better future for all New Yorkers,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

Jamestown’s DRI program, meanwhile, still has dollars to be spent. Some of the city’s projects have been completed. The Hilton Doubletree is open. Some pieces of the Jamestown riverwalk have been improved with DRI money, including LED lights. A Fund for Downtown Programming was created while upgrades to the Robert H. Jackson Center and Lucille Ball Little Theater have been finished.

Other projects never got off the ground. Improvements that were to law the track for excursion trains, slated to receive $670,000 of DRI funding, never happened. The city spent $830,000 of its DRI award on the Jamestown Brewing Company that briefly opened and now sits closed, with the building in the middle of a foreclosure fight. The Key Bank project sits unused after its developer had to sell the building after his finances collapsed. If streetscape improvements called for in the DRI plan happened, it’s hard to tell now.

Seven years ago, there was legitimate excitement in Jamestown and Oswego over the DRI. That remains true — in Oswego.