Kingston”™s uptown parking garage is being torn down, leading some nearby businesses to say traffic past their stores has declined precipitously and renewing larger questions about the prospects of the picturesque historic Stockade district in the city that served as the first capital of New York.
“Its not good,” said Ivan Velilla, co-owner of Velsani Arts and Antiques Inc. just across North Front Street from the former entrance to the three story concrete parking garage that is being demolished by heavy-duty machinery. “There are a lot less people passing in front the store, so less people are coming into the store. We”™ve lost more than half the (pedestrian) traffic.”
Arold Construction is doing the demolition for $589,000 and replacing the 317 space garage with 150 parking places in a grade-level parking lot. The entire project is slated to take 70 days or less. Meanwhile, there is street parking available, although somewhat in short supply, especially for workers in the area who can”™t necessarily leave work to go feed the parking meters every two hours.
Some motorists are parking about a quarter mile away downhill, in the unused portion of a shopping mall parking lot, but then the Stockade can be accessed only by an uphill climb along an industrial block bordered by the parking garage demolition site on one side of the street and a loading dock on the other.
Emerging at the top of the hill into the Stockade area is an abrupt change into an area of shops restaurants and offices in a historic setting. The sudden change provides clues to why many business owners in the area say the Stockade area is undiscovered by visitors. But the area is kept alive during business hours because the Ulster County office building and courts are within the district leading to clogged streets during the day and emptiness after dark.
City leaders have tried to change that with a massive development paradigm. The Front Street parking garage was the proposed site of a 12-story retail and residential tower, with underground parking. It would have been among the tallest structures between New York City and Albany, before developers pulled the plug late last year. The $65 million project by the New Jersey-based developer Teicher Organization was controversial, with preservationists saying it was out of scale with its surroundings and city officials saying it would have injected new residents into the area, which is often moribund outside business hours.
The Teicher tower would have been a glass-sheathed building with 214 condos, 10,000 square feet of retail space, and 600 parking spaces located within and underneath the structure, with 300 spaces of the new parking available for the public.
Although those plans evaporated, the demolition of the parking garage was mandated after a large chunk of concrete fell this spring and lead inspectors to declare the structure unsafe. City officials are still seeking proposals for a mixed-use development there but even if a proposal arises, some business owners question whether the city has done enough to capitalize on its history and charm.
“All those visitors passing on the Thruway to and from Canada, and everywhere else, we should have even just some billboards out there to let people know this is here,” said Velilla, the antique dealer, who notes Thruway exit 19 is less than a mile distant. “They could easily stop in here. But nobody knows.”
The RBA Group consulting firm of New York City told a meeting of city officials in January they found that parking in the area was adequate, but that available parking lots tucked into the narrow one ways streets were not often used, because they lacked proper signage to direct users there. A broader problem they saw was a lack of signs to direct visitors to the Stockade and guide them to the many historical and artistic attractions in the area. No action has been taken yet by city officials.
Kingston Mayor James Sottile did not return a call seeking comment on the Stockade area of Kingston.
