If you have dropped a kid off at a dance recital or a summer camp session at Cobblestone Arts Center on Crowley Road, you already know the building. The theater seats 140. The lobby has that warm, slightly worn feel of a place that has been renovated in pieces over the years rather than built all at once. What you may not know is that the piece currently being planned next door is not another classroom or a bigger lobby. It is a 95,000-square-foot wellness and recreation center, roughly the footprint of a small high school, going up on land the nonprofit already owns beside its current home.
That gap between what Cobblestone is today and what it says it is building next is the real story here. Not because the plan is exaggerated, but because the money raised so far does not yet match the size of the ambition, and understanding that gap tells you more about the timeline than any press release will.
What Cobblestone actually is right now
Cobblestone Arts Center has spent the last several years growing in modest, well-documented steps. In March 2024, the center held a ribbon-cutting for a 3,400-square-foot theater expansion, funded with support from the Golisano Foundation, the United Way, and the Davenport-Hatch Foundation. That addition let Cobblestone widen its lineup of visual and performing arts classes and host more community events in the expanded theater. Executive Director Lorene Benson thanked those donors directly at the time, calling their support pivotal to the center's ability to keep growing.
That expansion is the baseline. It is real, it is finished, and it is the version of Cobblestone that exists on Crowley Road today: an arts nonprofit serving adults with disabilities through dance, music, and visual arts programming, with a touring theater group called the Cobblestone Players that brings shows to rural communities beyond Farmington.
The much bigger plan sitting next to it
What comes next is a different scale of project entirely. Cobblestone's own site describes a planned Wellness and Recreation Center featuring two turf buildings, early childhood programs, mental health services, childcare, and a community library, built on land adjacent to the existing Arts Center. The full list of planned amenities, drawn from state grant reporting, includes:
- A gym, pool, and indoor track
- A dedicated workout space
- A library and meeting rooms for senior citizens
- Mental health services, acupuncture, and massage therapy
- A childcare center with space for up to 100 children, prioritizing kids with special needs and those from low-income families
That last detail matters. This is not a fitness center bolted onto an arts building. It is being designed as a genuinely mixed-use community hub, serving toddlers and seniors, people with disabilities and people without, under one roof on the north end of town.
Where the money actually stands
Here is the part that separates a real project from a wish list. In April 2025, Empire State Development awarded Cobblestone $1.8 million specifically to construct the new inclusive wellness center. That grant was reported independently by both the Rochester Business Journal and Finger Lakes Daily News, which described it as funding for a facility that would let Cobblestone serve up to 100 additional people with disabilities.
Then, sometime in the following year, the project picked up a second and much more personal boost: a $2 million grant from philanthropist Tom Golisano, whose family foundation had already backed the 2024 theater expansion. Cobblestone's own materials note that a further funding proposal has been submitted to New York State's Economic Development initiative, which tells you the $3.8 million raised so far is not treated internally as the finish line.
Here is that funding trail laid out in order:
| When | What happened | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| March 2024 | Theater expansion completed, ribbon cutting held | 3,400 sq. ft. addition |
| April 2025 | Empire State Development grant awarded for the Wellness Center | $1.8 million |
| 2026 | Personal grant from philanthropist Tom Golisano | $2 million |
| Ongoing | Additional state funding proposal submitted, outcome pending | Amount not yet disclosed |
Add the two confirmed grants together and you get $3.8 million against a facility Cobblestone itself describes as 95,000 square feet. That is not necessarily a shortfall. Large community builds are routinely assembled from a patchwork of grants, foundation gifts, and in-kind contributions over several years, and this project explicitly says it is still fundraising, with an open call on Cobblestone's site for help from people with expertise in finance, grant writing, contracting, or materials sourcing. What it does mean for anyone in Farmington paying attention is that the gap between announced funding and stated square footage is the honest measure of how far along this really is: further than a rendering, not yet at a groundbreaking.
Benson herself framed it as a long view rather than a done deal. "This center represents a bold step toward enhancing the well-being of our community," she said when the project was announced.
Why this is worth watching, not just reading about
None of this shows up if you only check Cobblestone's event calendar for the next dance recital or comedy night. The wellness center will not appear in a listing description, and there is no permit filing or construction start date attached to it as of this writing. But the direction is consistent across three separate years of public record: a completed expansion in 2024, a seven-figure state grant in 2025, and a seven-figure personal gift in 2026, all pointing at the same parcel of land off Crowley Road.
If you live in Farmington and drive past that stretch regularly, this is the kind of project worth bookmarking rather than forgetting. A childcare center with 100 slots and a senior meeting space would change who uses that corner of town on a Tuesday afternoon, not just on recital nights. A public pool and indoor track would be a genuinely new kind of amenity for a town that currently sends most of its recreational traffic to the Farmington Farm Market, the Auburn Trail, or Route 96 businesses further south.
For now, the honest way to describe it is planned and partially funded, backed by real institutions and a well-documented track record of Cobblestone finishing what it starts on a smaller scale. The next milestone to watch for is whether that outstanding state funding proposal comes through, since that is likely the number that determines whether this moves from site plan to steel in the next year or two.
If you want to know before it shows up in the Messenger Post, keep an eye on Cobblestone's own announcements and the Rochester Business Journal's coverage of Ontario County nonprofit grants. Those are the two sources that reported this accurately the first time.
Whether you are settling into Farmington for the long haul or just keeping tabs on what is changing in your own backyard, staying current on projects like this is part of understanding a town before you ever think about buying or selling in it. If you are weighing a move in Farmington, Canandaigua, or anywhere else in the Finger Lakes and want someone who tracks this kind of detail as closely as the market itself, reach out to Deanna & Steve Nissen. Get in touch.
