The city of Poughkeepsie, a city of 32,000 located 75 miles north of New York City along the Hudson River, is poised for a turnaround, and smart growth policies are at the center of the city”™s revitalization efforts.
Various planning initiatives, including a transit-oriented waterfront redevelopment strategy and a Main Street economic development strategy focused on complete streets principles, are helping to spur economic development and move the city into the 21st Century.
Poughkeepsie is not without challenges, but as the city continues to recover from years of population decline and economic disinvestment, the city is beginning to see signs of forward momentum.
More than 600 residential units are currently planned for areas in and around Poughkeepsie”™s waterfront, including 384 units on a former brownfield site and 136 units on a long-vacant urban renewal site. Approximately 160 additional units are planned at several mixed-use development projects along Main Street and in the city”™s downtown area, including the adaptive reuse of a former factory building, an urban infill development on Main Street and the redevelopment of a former department store.
In total, investment of more than $160 million is planned for various residential and mixed-use projects in the city. In addition, Health Quest is about to embark on a $467 million expansion of their flagship hospital, located on the city”™s south side. And the city is moving forward with more than $20 million in water and sewer improvements, one of the largest capital investments undertaken by the city in decades. All told, Poughkeepsie is about to experience the biggest construction boom it has seen since the early 20th Century. Now marks an important time for the city to establish a clear vision for smart, conscientious development with smart growth land use policies.
In order to encourage continued economic development, and ensure development occurs in a sustainable and equitable way, the city has undertaken a number of different smart growth initiatives in recent years. Between 2014 and 2015, the city adopted a Waterfront Redevelopment Strategy and a new form-based zoning district in the area around the Poughkeepsie train station. The station, which serves as the northern terminus of Metro-North Railroad on the busy Hudson Line and also as a regional hub for Amtrak, sits at the western end of Main Street at the Poughkeepsie waterfront ”” the city”™s “front porch.”
The strategy encourages development on underutilized parcels around the train station, creating a regional destination center. To make the development process more predictable, the form-based zoning district clearly defines the city”™s vision for development projects that promote a healthy spatial relationship between the built environment and pedestrians.
To connect the city”™s waterfront to the downtown business district, the Main Street Economic Development Strategy is exploring a number of different transportation-related interventions, including a dedicated Main Street transit route. The expanded transit service would run from the city”™s waterfront and train station east to the Arlington District, connecting to Vassar College and encouraging transit-oriented housing at nodes along the way.
Other strategies include converting Market Street, the city”™s primary civic corridor, into a complete street and converting the city”™s arterial highways, which cordon off downtown from the rest of the city, into pedestrian and bicycle friendly streets. Lastly, the city will draft new form-based zoning for the central business district, enhancing the walkability and livability of downtown while encouraging the redevelopment of the many city-owned and underutilized surface parking lots.
Similar to the form-based zoning district around the train station, the city recently adopted a form-based district along Parker Avenue near the Walkway Over the Hudson entrance. The new district is intended to encourage a mixed-use, walkable neighborhood, emphasizing bike routes, pedestrian amenities and lively streets along the Parker Avenue corridor, interconnected with nearby recreational trails.
Improved connectivity is the theme driving many of the city”™s initiatives. The city is currently exploring the feasibility of connecting the northern and southern waterfronts around Kaal Rock, a sixty-foot rock outcropping that separates the two. Once connected, the city will have a continuous greenway trail spanning more than two miles along the waterfront. Another connection being explored is connecting College Hill Park to the Dutchess County Rail Trail.
With all of the buzz around Poughkeepsie, businesses are taking notice. North River Roasters, a local community-supported social enterprise, launched in 2015 and will have its future home in a former factory building in downtown Poughkeepsie. Fourth State Metals, a custom metal and design fabricator based in Brooklyn, is moving their operation to an existing industrial site on the north side of Poughkeepsie, citing the city”™s relative affordability and potential for future expansion. And Digital Empire, a tech startup, has recently moved into the Indotronix building on Main Street in Poughkeepsie”™s downtown. The Indotronix building is becoming a hub of tech activity with co-working space for other tech start-ups, programmers and developers, and the location is also the new Dutchess County home of HV Tech Meetup, a group of like-minded technology lovers whose membership is nearing 1,000 strong.
Poughkeepsie”™s potential is virtually unparalleled in the mid-Hudson Valley, and with a new mayor proclaiming that the “buzz is back” in the Queen City, residents, business owners and visitors are starting to feel the #poughtential.
Paul Hesse is community development coordinator for the city of Poughkeepsie.
This is one in a series of reports on smart growth development in the region. The series will culminate in a March 24 panel discussion on smart growth trends hosted by Westfair Communications and Pace University Land Use Law Center at Pace Law School.
