The decidedly bad trend of watching old manufacturing facilities decay as tax coffers go begging has an archenemy now winning the day to the accompaniment of circular saws and nail guns in the town of Poughkeepsie: adaptive reuse.
A decade ago, Chicago-based Fargo Manufacturing Inc. pulled the plug on its electrical-component manufacturing plant at 130 Salt Point Turnpike. The 106,000-square-foot facility sits opposite St. Peter”™s Cemetery.
Conventional wisdom said the deceased across the street would make appropriate neighbors; the low-slung, brown-brick building would spring leaks and fall into decay; eventually the taxpayers would bulldoze it.
In the equation as being practiced by Hudson Valley Marketplace principal Eli Nassim and his architect, Michael R. Berta, 283 vendors will take over the old plant this fall as a reimagined village of shopping and dining under one roof. A tiled area will serve as a specialty food center and double as a business/hospitality space. The site will operate weekends.
“We were fortunate because the manufacturing process left large open spaces,” Bertha said. “The challenge was to take a building built in the 1960s and ”™70s and modernize it to today”™s standards and building codes while making a whole new function.”
Nassim said he bought the building for $5 million and is putting an additional $5 million into the Hudson Valley Marketplace. Progress was evident as he and Berta walked among the cavernous rows of stands (open on three sides) and kiosks (open on four sides) recently. Each will represent an enterprise in an electrified 8”™x 8”™ space; larger spaces of 8”™x 16”™ will serve to cap the long rows of, essentially, small stores.
Berta cited the plant”™s old loading docks as typical of the hurdles the marketplace faced. “What can you do with a loading dock?” he asked. The answer: a three-season opportunity for something a little different. “We”™re turning it into a restaurant area/food court. When the weather is nice, we”™ll open the bay doors and have an open-air café atmosphere. I”™m excited about this.”
Framing the larger picture, Berta said, “We”™re learning. We used to knock everything down and little was reused. Now, there”™s greater environmental consideration with the idea of sustainability and repurposing toward a new life for an old building. It”™s a better way to think.
“It really is a trend,” he said. “People are starting to look at old buildings as having a lot of life left in them.”
Berta, whose office is at 7 Robert Road in Poughkeepsie, recently met with a client to tour an old church with the idea of living there and said, “I hope he buys it.”
Berta already has learned one of the hard facts of remaking old buildings: “We”™re always uncovering unexpected surprises ”“ a couple of steel beams buried in walls that were not supposed to be there ”“ so I have to do a lot of redesign on the fly. I spend a lot of time here.”
Berta estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of work on an adaptive project such as Hudson Valley Marketplace cannot be predicted, presenting what he termed “additional challenges.” But, he said, “There has been nothing so big here that we could not handle.”
Berta, who first studied architecture at Dutchess Community College and who earned his professional American Institute of Architects accreditation via the workplace, has won several awards for local buildings, including a “gold” rating for one in Leadership in Environment and Energy Design. In some ways, he reflected, it was a good move when he was laid off from an architecture firm in Mount Kisco in 2008, the result of the recession. He will soon begin a project in Buffalo and does “a lot of work in Connecticut.” In 2009, he contracted 56 projects; in 2010 58 projects; and this year to date 24 projects. He identified himself as “chief cook and bottle washer.”
Work on Hudson Valley Marketplace has included:
Ӣ new insulation;
Ӣ new windows;
Ӣ replacement of all heating, ventilation and cooling equipment; and
Ӣ an up-to-date analysis of water needs.
The building maintains its stark contours, but not for long. “Awnings are coming,” Nassim said. “We”™re going to make a destination shopping experience with about 200 vendors. It will be a fun shopping experience and will act as a positive influence for the community.”
