HVEDC quietly selects site for focus development
HVEDC quietly selects site for focus development
The Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp., in the throes of seeking new leadership, has quietly abandoned its long-sought goal of creating three shovel-ready sites among the nine counties it serves and will focus on developing the Winston Farm in Saugerties.
Meantime, a competing site has positioned itself as a possibly cheaper, greener alternative that could be ready for business much sooner.
Winston Farm is where HVEDC will focus is efforts to find a shovel ready site, according to Marissa Brett, vice president of HVEDC, who spoke June 19. “We haven’t gone out to the newspapers with it,” said Brett, but said that HVEDC’s year-long effort to find a trio of sites spread throughout the Valley would no longer be pursued.
“At this point, the only site that wants to move forward is the Winston Farm,” said Brett.
That assertion came as a surprise to Dan Wieneke, president of Tech City, the former IBM site in the town of Ulster, which was trying to be considered a top shovel-ready site by HVEDC. “We haven’t heard anything about it; no one told us anything about it until this phone call,” Wieneke said June 30, responding to a reporter’s question.
He said the 260-acre Tech City is far ahead of the Winston Farm and all other venues in the Hudson Valley in terms of having a shovel-ready site primed and approved for construction under an ongoing redevelopment plan, now being considered on a fast track by the Ulster Town Board.
Wieneke said it would likely cost far less for a company to build a new facility of up to 500,000 square feet at Tech City than at Winston Farm or any other site, since Tech City already has redundant capacity for electricity that manufacturing would need as well as sewer, water and fiber optic. It also has direct access to the state Thruway and a railroad siding. There’s no rail at Winston Farm.
He said he does not understand why HVEDC made their decision for the Winston Farm, saying that Tech City will soon have approval for its master plan. “Our permitting process is going to be done before their’s (at Winston Farm) is even started,” Wieneke said
The 800-acre Winston Farm, running roughly northwest from the corner of State Route 32 and State Route 212 in Saugerties has its main entrance literally across the road from the southbound interchange at Thruway exit 20. The proposal is for a business park on roughly 250 acres of the parcel.
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