In Orange County, ‘road to nowhere’ helps drive economy

Maureen Halahan of Orange County Partnership laughs as she recalls the initial reaction to Lou Heimbach”™s “road to nowhere” when it was introduced more than 25 years ago.

Heimbach was the Orange County executive who picked up the Neelytown Road ball and ran with it back in the early 1980s. “Lou Heimbach and Montgomery”™s former Supervisor Carl Helstrom had a vision,” Halahan said of the manicured and well-maintained  road that runs from Route 207, right off Interstate 84, and ends 3.5 miles later at the T-intersection of Route 416.

A quarter-century later, several national companies are utilizing that “road to nowhere,” just 4 miles from Stewart International Airport, including Cardinal Health, Home Depot, Byrne Dairy, Do It Best Home Improvement Products, United Parcel Service, Taylor Recycling and Con-Way Freight. They and others have created jobs and tax ratables for the town of Montgomery.

Now, Opus Group will be constructing three separate industrial-use buildings and create direct access to Neelytown Road. Although the physical location will be in the town of Hamptonburgh, Neelytown Road access means location, location, location to the company. It will privately maintain its entrance to the Hamptonburgh site. “We”™re within a hair”™s breadth of getting final approvals on these buildings,” said Bob Sherreik of McBride Real Estate in Central Valley.

“Regardless of what happens, Opus will proceed with the largest building first and it will be subdividable to users of at least 200,000 square feet,” Sherreik said. The former horse farm will now be home to one of what Sherreik said is “probably the largest ”˜spec”™ building built in the Hudson Valley.”

Opus”™ property was one of the first to receive a Build Now New York grant. “Once building permits are issued, the new building will be up and running within a year,” Sherreik said.

Others, promises Halahan, won”™t be far behind. “We are in the center of the ”˜BosWash”™ corridor and have three interstates here: I-87, I-84 and Route 17 is being converted to I-86. There are entire states that only have one interstate within their state. We have three in one county. That puts 20 million people in our ”˜catchment area.”™”

 

Halahan said while some may scoff at distribution centers, saying they bring low-paying jobs, “The fact is they bring jobs for many people in all salary ranges in the mid-Hudson. If you start off at the low-entry end, you can march right through into management positions. If you are smart and can work, you can make it in that business. With the impact the Port Authority will have on Stewart, our Montgomery distribution hub is certainly going to become an attractive spot for state, national and international carriers.”

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will officially take over airport operations in November.

Nobody could agree more than Lou Heimbach, who may have taken some flak when he introduced the notion of creating the commercial roadway in the early 1980s. Now president of Sterling Forest L.L.C., Hiembach said, “There”™s no doubt Stewart”™s takeover by the Port Authority is going to be a tremendous catalyst, not just to Neelytown Road”™s distribution hub but for all of us in the entire Hudson Valley. The entire region will be more attractive. Access to an airport is very important.”

According to Orange Partnership statistics, only the town of Newburgh”™s and the town of Wallkill”™s commercial ratables pay more into the tax base than the real property county taxpayers. In Montgomery, Valley Central School District draws 69 percent of its revenue from real property tax owners and 31 percent from commercial ratables, while the town relies on 68 percent of its homeowners and 32 percent of its commercial business for revenue.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Halahan. “We need sustainable commercial growth to come to Orange County if we are going to continue to keep and attract our younger generation. It is becoming more and more unaffordable to live here. We need to turn those numbers around. It can be done and we can still keep the region a beautiful place to live and work.”

Panattoni, an international development company, will also join the ranks of distribution centers building on Neelytown, where it is planning to erect a 505,000-square-foot building along the corridor. “They have done a fabulous job revamping the former Wakefern site in Wallkill,” said Halahan, “and they are a major asset to Orange County.”

While Orange has the lion”™s share of distribution centers near Stewart, Dutchess has a stake in the Port Authority takeover, too. Its Fishkill distribution center has 2.5 million square feet of space and employs some 800 people, according to Anne Conroy, president of the Dutchess County Economic Development Corp.