The town of Cortlandt this month is expected to convene its Verplanck Quarry Planning Committee to continue the effort to create a master plan for development of the 99-acre Cortlandt Quarry Park with three development proposals currently being floated. The site of the former quarry has frontage along the Hudson River in addition to inland frontage along 11th Street and Broadway in the hamlet of Verplanck.
The property was acquired by Cortlandt in 2016. It formerly was owned by Con Edison and once was the site of a limestone quarry. The quarry closed in 1956 after it began to be flooded by water from an underground stream. Eventually, the flooding created a pond covering almost 32 acres with some sections deeper than 150 feet. Rock cliffs rise from 30 to 80 feet high on portions of the site. Three concrete buildings related to the former quarry operation are partially submerged by the pond.
Cortlandt was awarded $3.2 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce”™s Economic Development Administration Assistance to Nuclear Closure Communities Program to help fund development of a new recreation facility on the quarry site along with infrastructure improvements, including roads and a water line.
Three businesses are proposing development plans for the quarry and the master plan may be crafted in such a way as to make it possible for all three or even additional developers to build and coexist.
Currently proposed are an outdoor adventure sports park featuring water-based attractions; an indoor sports center featuring artificial turf fields for soccer, lacrosse and other sports; and a hard apple cider production facility and taproom.
“We’ll move it all forward together. That”™s why I wanted to have this review done in a coordinated fashion so that all three projects are moving forward and are complementary,” Richard H. Becker, the Cortlandt supervisor, said. “I see this is as a year ”˜round facility and for residents of Verplanck I want them to be able to walk into this and have a park-like feeling ”¦ have a drink at the cidery, or to go to an art gallery, or to swim during the warmer months.”
Michael Presiosi, director of Cortlandt”™s Department of Technical Servics, explained that gathering community input is an important part of the plannng process at the moment.
“We want to better prepare and plan the site. We don”™t want to create multiple parking lots if there can be shared parking, shared infrastructure,” Presiosi said. “There’s more legwork that needs to be done. Right now we have three different developers. We want to start to pull them together and start to pull public input as well.”
The proposal for an adventure sports park comes from Brownstone Exploration and Discovery Park, which is located in Portland, Connecticut. Sean Hayes, president and CEO of Brownstone, said that they currently are operating at a quarry that had been vacant for over 100 years in Portland. He described their plan for the quarry in Verplanck as being akin to recreating an old-time swimming hole with modern attractions. These would include: swimming; snorkeling; cliff jumping; wakeboarding; rope swings; scuba diving; rock climbing; kayaking; and zip lining.
“It’s a year ’round adventure and sports park but primarily it is a summer operation,” Hayes said. “The master plan is to recreate a similar model as Brownstone, and that is a family-oriented sports park. The core of this business is school groups, parks and recreation, coming with their camps as a day trip destination. A family of four can afford to come into this park with no additional cost than the entrance fee because they can bring their own food and drink. Obnvuiously, we’re checking ”” no alcohol allowed in the park.”
Hayes estimated that it would cost about $2 million to build the sports park.
Hayes said there would be a walk-up restaurant and shopping destination that would service both customers in and out of the park and would operate for three seasons of the year. He envisioned there being two outdoor dining patios, a new building for restrooms and a 55-car restaurant parking lot. He estimated the development cost of the restaurant and retail area as $2 million.
Hayes estimated that by the fifth year of operation there would be 73 full-time employees and 188 seasonal employees.
The indoor sports complex known as Cortlandt Pitch was proposed by NY Indoor Sports Inc., headed by Martin Russo, an attorney and Cortlandt resident. It”™s estimated the facility would cost at least $15 million to construct. Russo said it would be “astate of the art indoor multi-sport facility, safe turf, which gives additional opportunities to the town’s children, adults and seniors.”
Russo said that an indoor sports facility is needed in the area.
“The local climate in Cortlandt makes it impossible to play outdoors from mid-November to May,” Russo said. “With climate change I don”™t know what”™s going to happen. Most of the fields are too wet. They”™re not sustainable.”
The proposed facility would have a field-length balcony on the second floor with stadium style seating for spectators. There would be party rooms, coaching and training offices. A food service area would offer items such as soups, salads, sandwiches and pizza slices.
Christine Sisler, founder and CEO of Merchant’s Daughter Ciderworks in Purdys, said that the company would like to build a production facility and taproom at the quarry. She said that she and her associates, Amy Wirtanen, who is the firm”™s chief marketing officer, and Dan O”™Brien, who is the chief cider maker, were with PepsiCoand collectively have more than 70 years of experience making beverages.
“We know how to get liquid into a bottle and we have gone from soda and water and wine to now making cider,” Sisler said. “We are not going to be pressing apples on-site. We are going to be brining in juice from the orchards and growers we work with so you would not have a pressing facility and there would not be huge columns where we are doing the distillation. It is a very clean process; it also is very seasonal. We are using only New York state apples.”
