There is a room at the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center in Wingdale with mold on the floor so thick it looks like lush broadloom.
Brooding and brick, the psychiatric campus consists of 80 mostly early 20th-century buildings straddling Route 22. A 1964 hospital dominates the hill east of the older structures, empty and slated for demolition, as are half the older ones if plans hold.
The scoping document outlining a plan to create a railroad-centric town on the site has been approved by the Dover Town Board, the lead agency in the application process. A draft environmental statement (DEIS) is in the works, followed by final environmental statements, input from affected agencies such as the Department of Transportation, the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Dover School District … and if everything runs smoothly, a groundbreaking in 2010.
Whether that”™s doable remains to be seen, but town of Dover Supervisor Ryan Courtien found last fall a groundswell of support to make it happen and was elected in November at age 31 based at least in part on his enthusiasm for the development.
“I talked to a thousand residents,” said Courtien of the period leading up to the November election. “The big issue? Eighty-five percent at some point in a two -, three-, four-minute conversation said the Dover Knolls project needs to move forward.”
The current application, according to Dover Knolls Development Co. II L.L.C. is for 1,376 housing units and 245,800 square feet of commercial space, both office and retail. “It will be a huge economic boost to complete this,” said  Kathleen Schibanoff, the community liaison for Long-Island-based developer The Benjamin Cos. “How much better could it get than to reuse a site that”™s already been degraded and turn it into a vibrant community?”
The 850-acre facility”™s sale for $4 million to Alvin Benjamin”™s development company in October 2003 came with a few off-putting details: 2.5 million square feet of lead- and asbestos-contaminated floor space; much of the land protected as part of the Great Swamp; and, since then, another $16 million merely to be, as they say in Texas, “fixin”™ to get ready to begin.” Just to idle in neutral, filing forms and running security, costs the developer about $1 million per year. As pallid as progress sounds thus far, it”™s an improvement over last August when the developer yanked the application after perceived delays and the $500 million project was dead in the water.
A new town leadership this year resuscitated the project in March, achieving more in four months than had been achieved in the previous four years, Courtien said.
Seated recently in his no-nonsense office, Courtien wore a sturdy 5 o”™clock shadow as he waxed about the project. He was up late, he explained scratching his chin, at a motor vehicle accident in his capacity as a volunteer with the J.H. Ketcham Hose Co.
Of Dover Knolls he said: “There is definitely a momentum.”
Still, Courtien would like to show people more than paper gains. He wants to see one major historic building and several model units for different uses go up to demonstrate progress as soon as permitting allows. “I was talking to some seniors,” he said. “And they told me they doubted they”™d see anything in their lifetime. I said, ”˜Two years; now we”™re talking two years.”™”
Already, Benjamin can point to the restored manor house, at one time the psychiatric center director”™s home, that serves as on-site company headquarters and as a template for turning a building from wreck to resplendent.
Tight energy could play into Dover Knolls”™ plans, more so than when gas was $2 a gallon when Benjamin bought the site. Said Courtien: “The message I would like to get out is this: With the cost of gas so high, it makes a lot of sense for businesses to relocate to Dover and Dover Knolls and their employees could live here.” He cited in-place electric, water and sewage, the train station and the Route 22 corridor as major infrastructure enticements for what he terms a “transit-oriented development.”
What looks romantic and a little foreboding breezing past on Route 22 can be downright daunting up close, attractive mainly to troublemakers and their loosely conjoined compatriots in the blog-driven “Urban Explorer” movement ”“ a group of break-in artists with destructive or nondestructive tendencies, depending on their mood. “Sometimes, they just take pictures, other times not,” Schibanoff said. Both the Dutchess County Sheriff”™s Office and the New York State Police have “posted” signs on the property.
An up-close look reveals, politely, care-worn edifices, but there was no evidence of overt vandalism or vagrants.
“Most who came and kicked the tires could not deal with the upfront costs,” said Schibanoff of the facility”™s 10-year sale process. Her employer, Benjamin, already has a pair of first-shuttered, then-rejuvenated Long Island mental institutions to its credit, much as the company wants to do at Wingdale.
The facility”™s 1964, 10-story hospital ”“ the epitome of bland institutional architecture ”“ looks serviceable, but is “a complete mess,” Schibanoff said. “It”™s one of the worst buildings here.” It and many of its neighboring buildings ”“ about half ”“ are targets for the wrecking ball.
“The buildings along Route 22 will be saved,” Schibanoff said. She noted that besides the original 850-acre purchase, Benjamin has added another 83 acres on the west side of Route 22.
The private-public Harlem Valley Golf Course is visible from Route 22. It is, said Schibanoff, hugely popular, featuring the double-your-acreage golf trick of nine holes with 18 tees. If the Dover Knolls development is built on the scale proposed, several holes would be remade, but the plan is to keep the course mostly as it is. The landmark power plant with its towering smokestack would likewise remain.
Large developments have been known to run into buzz-saws of opposition from school boards. Dover Knolls could be an exception. Schibanoff, by way of example, is both an elected Dover school board member and, since 1994 when the state closed the psychiatric center, an active community member trying to raise interest from developers, serving as executive director of the Harlem Valley Partnership for Economic Development. “We absolutely will address the schools,” she said. “It is not a given that this is a bad thing.”
Some housing is targeted as age-restricted, which should alleviate strain on the schools. And, Schibanoff notes, Dover”™s school numbers have been trending south, down now to 1,600-plus students from 1,800-plus several years ago.
She cites more concerns from memory: “Wetlands, water, wastewater, traffic, noise, lighting, birds, archaeology, the Great Swamp runs through it. You have to remember we”™re building a town center here. It”™s a long-term project and it won”™t happen overnight.”
Courtien said the Dover Town Board is working with the developer in search of solutions, including a fresh schematic that intensifies housing density close to the Wingdale train station.
The psychiatric facility at its peak had 5,000 patients and 5,000 employees. Said Courtien “The decline in employment in the late ”™80s and into the ”™90s” ”“ the state shut down most of the plant in 1994, though a police training barracks and active Catholic church remain ”“ “it really changed the character of the town. It affected things like the fire department, which lost volunteers. This would become the center of Wingdale and have a large affect on the area, potentially even on the Hudson Valley.”
Wingdale is in the 103rd Assembly district of Marc Molinaro, who said he is respectful of the Town Board”™s overview. He stressed the importance of the ongoing review process and said, “Ultimately, reusing this particular site could have profound benefits for the region.”
