Kingston Business Park is a 107-acre campus owned by the Kingston Local Development Corporation (KLDC) that currently has two active commercial tenants: Howmet Aerospace and Community Manufacturing Solutions. The KLDC and the City of Kingston would like to see some of the vacant space developed with housing and possibly commercial buildings. They have issued a Request for Proposals seeking architectural and design concepts for such a project.
“Historically, the Business Park has been used for commercial entities, but we are interested in redeveloping the remaining available parcels for residential or mixed-use development,” Mayor Steven Noble said. “Kingston was recently designated as a Pro-Housing Community by New York state, and we have set an ambitious goal for approving 1,000 new housing units by 2029. We are looking at the redevelopment of the Business Park as a potential for reaching this goal.”
The Kingston Business Park is at 370-384 Delaware Ave. It was established in 1998 and was designed to accommodate four to five light manufacturing facilities totaling 300,000 to 500,000 square feet, utilizing approximately 40 to 50 acres for commercial development. The City of Kingston also owns an adjoining parcel at 250-256 R Third Avenue that the city and KLDC believe could be part of the redevelopment or that could serve as another access point into the Business Park.
The Business Park has a municipally owned access road and has city water and sewer access. It also has partial seasonal vistas of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains, and is partially surrounded by the recently established Sojourner Truth State Park.
The conceptual and design project is to be paid for using federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. The RFP says that among the elements the firm selected for a contract would be expected to complete are: a survey of physical development options based on topographic features and available space; a full range of residential massing options for the site including layouts that maximize the unit count and residential square footage; alternatives that allow for less residential density; and exploration of both mixed-use and fully residential possibilities.
“Arriving at the best solutions for the development of the site will take a collaborative, iterative process,” the RFP says. “Multiple rounds of revisions with the City of Kingston and the KLDC are to be expected.”
RFP submissions are expected to be turned in by May 17. The city expects that work on the architectural and design project could begin this summer.
