Winston Farm Saugerties Supervisor Gregory L. Helsmoortel at Winston Farm.
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It has been a farm for a long time. It also a graveyard for development plans featuring a giant landfill and a giant casino. It hosted a giant rock concert. Now, officials in the town of Saugerties and Ulster County are hoping that the Winston Farm can provide a giant boost to the region”™s economy as the site of a high-tech business park.
“I think it would be wonderful not just for the immediate area but for the entire Hudson Valley,” said Saugerties town Supervisor Gregory L. Helsmoortel, touring the 800 acres of snowy fields and forest. The farm, running roughly northwest from the corner of state Route 32 and state Route 212, has its main entrance directly across the road from the southbound interchange at Thruway exit 20.
The proposal for a business park on roughly 250 acres of the parcel will be the subject of a public meeting at Saugerties High School at 6:45 pm. Jan. 29.
Helsmoortel said officials with the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation and the Ulster County Development Corporation believe the Winston Farm could prove very attractive to high-tech businesses seeking a “green field” site to allow them to build to suit their needs. But the site is large enough also to accommodate public access to its scenic environs, an important selling point in a town where community opposition has been organized enough to ward off previous proposals slated for Winston Farm.
Over the years, the Winston Farm has been identified as the site to build a county landfill, but after massive opposition from town folk stymied that proposal it instead hosted the huge rock concert Woodstock ”™94, which brought an estimated 250,000 revelers to the land. As part of that deal, organizers were subsequently supposed to help build a performing arts center, but the site owner, Ralph Schaller, who made his fortune with a metropolitan area meatpacking and distribution company, did not endorse the idea of a performing arts center.
In 2005, the Winston Farm was proposed as a site to host to a half-billion-dollar casino proposed by the Seneca-Cayuga Indian nation. Those plans were also widely opposed in the town and are apparently dead.
Helsmoortel said the Schaller family has been closely involved in the preliminary planning for a business park on the site and is supportive of the idea. He said the town has also been diligent in reaching out to citizens groups and said so far there is support in the community at large for the business park idea.
“We”™re taking it slowly and we”™re including everybody in our discussions,” said Helsmoortel. “We want to protect the land, we want to protect the community, but we also want our kids to have a job when they get out of college.”
Lanny Walter, who was active in combating both the landfill and the casino proposals, is also part of a new group called Friends of the Winston Farm, which has been included in discussions on the proposal. He said the group is cautiously supportive of the ideas being floated so far, although he cautions no details or plans have been put forth. He noted that after years of hearing ideas, the Schaller family seems ready to develop the land.
“I”™m of a mindset that something is going to happen and we are trying to make sure that whatever happens is as environmentally safe as possible, that it allows for public access, and encourages jobs for our kids and other people,” said Walter.
He said that it would be important to construct the business park along sustainable development principles so as to have the least effect on the environment and smallest carbon footprint. But he said this should not be a problem and that in meetings with engineers already conducted by the town, representatives of CH2M Hill have touted their company”™s “green” credentials including attaining a LEEDS (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold standard for a recent project.
The business community also seems supportive. “I”™d like to see that land put to beneficial use for the community,” said Ed Montano, co-owner of Montano Shoes which has been a fixture in the community for decades. “Probably an industrial park would be a good fit there, right by the Thruway. I see that as a far better idea than a casino.”
Montano said that his only concern would be “Infrastructure type questions, traffic flow, things like that. For a small town, traffic can be an issue at times, but if it were addressed properly I don”™t think it would be a problem.”
Lance Matteson, president of the UCDC said that officials and consultants from the global engineering firm CH2M Hill see the Winston Farm site as potentially very attractive for development into a business park. “It is a top potential development location in the Hudson Valley,” said Matteson.
Besides Thruway access, the site has gas lines running nearby which could be extended to Winston Farm for a relatively modest sum. Central Hudson has already been consulted and electricity is available, Helsmoortel said, by running towers and wires over a ridge from a nearby substation, although it would be an expensive process. “That would be big big bucks,” Helsmoortel said. He added the county is planning to apply for assistance from the federal government to pay for the power supply and is hoping to be selected as a project financed at least in part by the federal stimulus package promised by the upcoming Obama administration.
The site is bordered by water and sewer mains, but those would need to be extended onto the property. Additionally the oft-overlooked complication and expense of storm water management could prove particularly challenging in the rolling environs of the Winston Farm, which is laced with creeks and small water courses and overlays an extensive aquifer. Helsmoortel said the development would be extremely protective of the aquifer, and noted having an abundant water supply is another plus for the site.
There is a longstanding shortage of affordable housing in the area, which could continue to discourage businesses from locating in the Hudson Valley. But Helsmoortel said that if the business park is set into motion, there would be a two to three year window of opportunity to create housing for workers and executives there.
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