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Psych. Center Development Project Gains Ground
Source : Poughkeepsie Journal
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Source: Ian MacFarland - Poughkeepsie Journal
Date: 08.19.2005
Looking to move forward with plans to develop the former Hudson River Psychiatric Center into a massive complex of apartments, houses, offices and stores, developers are asking the town to create a unique zoning designation for the 156-acre property that will allow them to renovate the historic main building and develop the grounds according to a phased, multi-year master plan.
The developer, Hudson Heritage, is based in the City of Poughkeepsie and is comprised of principals Richard Chazen, Arnold Moss and Alex Reese. They have been working on the project for more than seven years, since the state first began marketing the now-abandoned Route 9 property in 1997, and have partnered with CPC Resources, a for-profit subsidiary of the non-profit housing lender Community Preservation Corporation, based in Manhattan.
Reese said the company's plans call for a series of pedestrian-friendly developments anchored by the former hospital, a large Victorian complex listed on the national historic register. That building would become the centerpiece of a village development that would incorporate a 60-room hotel and condominiums into the historic structures, along with an existing theater and church and newly built apartments, shops and offices.
"We're planning a series of squares and row houses, to make that really into a village," said Reese.
To the south would be a business park with office buildings, a large supermarket, recreational amenities and more shops, while the north end of the property would be primarily residential.
All told, plans call for more than 780 housing units and 300,000 square feet of commercial space, along with community and hospitality uses.
"This is not going to be a gated, upper-scale economic community," Reese said. "We want to attract people of various means to this community."
According to Moss, the plans have changed little since they were first presented to the public in 2003. "Fundamentally, it's just reconfigured," he said this week.
"Anti-Sprawl"
During a tour of the Hudson Heritage property on Tuesday, Reese said he is consciously trying to avoid the brand of sprawling suburban development that has taken root in the Hudson Valley.
"We've had a lot of that," he said, "but I've always believed one of the strengths of the Hudson Valley is its structure of towns."
In a town like Poughkeepsie, where town officials and anti-sprawl residents often note that there is no true center of the community, Hudson Heritage's approach is to build such a center from the ground up.
"The reason why we got involved in the first place," Reese said, "was to create a context which would be unique – a fabulous place to live and work and play. We want to make the Hudson Valley what it should be. We want to be able to show what's potentially possible in the area."
He added, "This is an anti-sprawl type of development," with a focus on walking and having a mix of residences and businesses close together. "If we can pull it off, it would be completely unique in the Hudson Valley."
It's not a project without its challenges, however. Years of neglect have left the historic main building in a state of advanced disrepair. And because it's a national landmark, the developers are limited in the alterations they can make.
"Reconfiguring a hospital into a place where people want to live is a challenge in itself," Reese said. "But the real challenge is getting the building back to the point where you can start working with it."
He estimated that the entire project, which could take more than seven additional years to complete, will cost "several hundred million dollars," spread across multiple phases of growth, with the historic building as the first priority.
Reaction from town officials has generally been positive, and Moss said he hopes their work on the project's proposed zoning will be incorporated into the town's own zoning revision process.
"The work we'll do on zoning will be a much higher level of scrutiny than the town would normally do in rezoning," he said. "We're going to educate the town and the public."
The current zoning calls for half-acre residential lots, a designation that would prohibit all of the plans developers have devised. They are calling for a new zoning district, the Historic Revitalization Development District, which would encourage and allow the reuse of historic buildings, a mix of residential and commercial uses and a comprehensive design for the entire property to ensure consistency and coordination.
Submitted to the town at the end of July, the proposal is currently under review. However, it cannot be approved until the lifting of the town's moratorium on large residential developments, designed to halt large projects while the town updates its Comprehensive Plan and zoning ordinance. That process is ongoing.
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