Dutchess County can be viewed as a place of contradictions.
It”™s historic, with a promising future in high technology. It”™s rural, with 650 farms and two historic Hudson River cities where years of neglect on the shoreline are morphing into appreciation and opportunity.
It also has major manufacturing facilities and yet is almost a bedroom community with two separate passenger rail lines serving commuters with jobs in New York City.
“In general we”™ve got this wide diversity,” said John MacEnroe, president and CEO of the Dutchess County Development Corp. “We”™ve got urban centers like Beacon and Poughkeepsie; we”™ve got suburban areas like Hopewell and we”™ve got really rural areas. So we”™ve got something for every type of business.”
He said the area also has a skilled work force and educational and employee recruitment opportunities not only at Dutchess Community College, but at three elite four- year colleges along the Hudson River: Vassar, Marist and Bard.
“And we”™ve got a business-friendly attitude,” he said. “Most of the municipalities have plans in place on how they want to develop.”
“There”™s so much we have to offer,” said Mary Kay Vrba, the director of tourism for Dutchess County, who touts history, nature, art and culinary excellence as signposts of Dutchess County.
She lists examples ranging from the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vanderbilt estates to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and the Bardavon Theater in Poughkeepsie to the world famous Dia modern art center in Beacon and art galleries in Rhinebeck.
Dutchess even has a modern attraction literally on top of a historic wonder, the Walkway Over the Hudson, the world”™s highest pedestrian walkway, officially a state park that was built atop a 1.3-mile long railroad bridge that was considered an engineering marvel and key economic engine when it opened Jan. 1, 1889.
The county has a corporate mainstay stoking the economy, with IBM still the county”™s largest private employer with about 9,000 full-time employees. But to ensure Dutchess”™ future as a manufacturing center, the county may need an influx of new business and green technology as IBM is steadily sending jobs to cheaper workplaces overseas.
A bid for new jobs in the green sector is seen in companies such as SpectraWatt, a manufacturer and supplier of advanced silicon photovoltaic cells to the solar industry, which in May started up its production line at their factory in Hopewell Junction and hopes to create hundreds of jobs.
Established in 1683 and named after Mary of Modena, Duchess of York and the second wife of King James II of England, Dutchess County now has roughly 290,000 residents with a median family income of $63,000. The county seat in Poughkeepsie and Beacon are historic manufacturing cities along the Hudson River and are undergoing revivals of fortune in a problematic economy where officials are betting on waterfront development to build on early success.
“We are the midpoint between New York and Albany, a true destination point along the Hudson,” said Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik. “As the Queen City, this is where industry took place, everything was built upon the river and the ships that docked here.”
No ships dock at Poughkeepsie now, except for Sloop Clearwater, but a marina is being built at Shadows on the Hudson and the Grandview, a restaurant and catering complex south of the Mid-Hudson Bridge, are confirming the value of investments along historic riverfront properties.
The nonprofit Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries is initiating programs to better understand the Hudson and other rivers around the world, using low-tech nets to catch samples while partnering with IBM to develop high-tech sensors to understand rivers in ways never achieved before.
And of course there are farms, farmers and their fans. “We have all our farms where visitors come up from New York City by train and we bring them by bus to pick strawberries, raspberries, apples, maybe go to our wineries and go back to city,” Vrba said.
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Riding the rails to the future
America might be a nation of drivers, but it doesn”™t mean it has to be car-centric.
In Dutchess County, railroads are in a sense leading back to the future, as historic cities and new developments alike take advantage of two separate Metro-North Railroad lines that bring visitors and residents to work and play.
“The railroad actually turns the city of Beacon into one large transit-oriented development,” Mayor Steven K. Gold said. “People can walk, ride or bicycle to the station within minutes and then it”™s an hour to New York City. And in reverse, Beacon benefits greatly from the tourists who ride the railroad.”
The scenic journey on Metro-North”™s Hudson line passes among other sites, Bannerman”™s Castle, the Bear Mountain Bridge and Constitution Marsh where a sharp-eyed rider can spot a bald eagle.
Poughkeepsie, too, possesses a station considered critical to both today and tomorrow. Not long ago, its environs were blighted.
“If you were at this place 10 years ago, you would have seen a barren toxic wasteland,” said Charles S. North, president and CEO of the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce, standing in the new expanded railroad station overlooking the Hudson River, the Walkway and the Mid-Hudson Bridge, as well as a refurbished industrial building that now houses several eateries and businesses. Now, he calls the railroad the “hub” where visitors can arrive and walk everywhere to hotels to government centers to the waterfront.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the two cities have signed agreements creating transit-oriented development projects that will use smart growth principles to foster offices, shops and residences around the railroad stations, that in both cases are just uphill from the waterfronts.
Metro-North is also bringing business to the center of the county. The Harlem line stops at Pawling, Wingdale, Dover Plains and Wassaic and has proven an attractive lure. The Benjamin Cos. of Long Island has proposed a 931-acre transit-oriented development on both sides of Route 22 around the Wingdale train station.
The railroad is also key to the $700 million Silo Ridge Resort that has completed  the regulatory process and hopes for a grand opening of the complex in 2012. Situated on Route 22 in the town of Amenia on the current site of the Silo Ridge Country Club, the 670-acre site master development plan calls for a 300-unit condo-style hotel, an 18-hole golf course, a winery, 297 condominiums and 41 single-family homes and a village center. And it is all happening, in large part, because the Harlem line has its last stop at the Wassaic station, a short distance to the south.
