Construction is booming along Dutchess County”™s Route 9 corridor and one developer who is seizing the moment is Tom Mulroy.
Mulroy is planning what he hopes will become a model for others striving to strike a balance between the region”™s natural beauty and its inevitable development.
Bellefield at Historic Hyde Park is the name of the live-work-play neighborhood planned for 340 acres of woods across from The Culinary Institute of America. The Route 9 property, formerly owned by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) came on the market by a circuitous route and was eventually bought in 2011 by Mulroy, founder and CEO of T-Rex Capital Group.
The $500 million mixed residential/commercial project includes 844 housing units and over 781,000 square feet of commercial space that would be built in several phases, using approximately 140 acres of the parcel for structures while leaving its remaining 200 acres as open space.
The first phase, now completed, of the project focused on Belleville”™s “horizontal” infrastructure ”” public water, electricity and a wastewater treatment plant. Its main entrance on Route 9/Albany Post Road also stands ready, its $1 million traffic light poised to allow future residents and visitors easy access to its rolling hills.
Phase two includes a hotel and a mix of residential/commercial space. Mulroy, in a joint venture with Bob McCarthy (former COO of Marriot International) and Shaner Hospitality, plans to build a 137-room Residence Inn. That construction, delayed due to the pandemic, is now expected to break ground in the third quarter of this year.
Hart Howarton is the architect/land planning firm chosen to design a variety of commercial and residential offerings for the project”™s second phase. Among those designs will be one for the Hudson Valley Culinary Marketplace, a venue for food retailers selling artisanal goods. City Winery is among the tenants that will be on board once construction ramps up.
Bellefield planners will also carve out a separate parcel that will be dedicated to sustainable farming and agriculture.
In the next phase of development, Mulroy plans a second hotel that will offer up to 300 boutique-style rooms with amenities, including a wellness center and spa that will also be made available to Bellefield residents.
T-Rex Capital Group is expected to request a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) and an exemption from sales use taxes on construction materials, and an exemption of the mortgage recording tax following the exemption percentages as published in the 2018 schedule prepared by the Dutchess County Industrial Development Agency.
The Bellefield project is expected to bring new households and employees to the town of Hyde Park. Camoin 310, an economic development consulting firm in Saratoga Springs, completed a 2020-dated executive summary that estimates the town of Hyde Park will receive a total of $9.39 million of net fiscal benefit over a period of 10 years.
In addition, its economic/fiscal impact study projects that Bellefield”™s on-site operations will create more than 400 construction jobs. When fully built out, its hotels and on-site businesses are expected to create several hundred full-time jobs in the county.
Mulroy is enthusiastic about the project, giving kudos to all the members of the team he”™s assembled to bring Bellefield at Historic Hyde Park to life.
He expects completion of the campus will take a minimum of five to seven years. He doesn”™t underestimate the power Dutchess County has to attract.
“We are directly across the street from The Culinary Institute of America. Walkway Over the Hudson gets a minimum of 800,000 people visiting each year, and Bellefield will offer a trail that connects directly to the Walkway over the Hudson and the Hudson Valley Rail Trail.
“All told, the Hudson Valley attracts approximately 25 million visitors each year and since we”™re on a main artery, Route 9, more than 4 million of them will come right by our front door. We”™ve seen the success that similar projects have achieved ”” Steve Nygren”™s wellness community, Serenbe (located in Chattahoochee Hills, outside of Atlanta), is an example of what we are working to achieve here in the Northeast.”
