Poughkeepsie is looking for a qualified developer to develop 14-acre city-owned site fronting on the Hudson River. It’s known as the DeLaval site, which references the former owner of the land, DeLaval Separator Company. The company made devices that separated cream from milk.
The DeLaval company had a multi-building complex using approximately 10 acres of the site. By the 1920s, the company was manufacturing more than 80,000 cream separators each year. According to the city, the DeLaval plant was one of the largest employers in Poughkeepsie. In the late 1930s, the company”™s devices were doing more than separating cream from milk; they were being used to stir cocktails. During World War II, the DeLaval company created oil separating machines to help fulfill the U.S. Navy”™s need for lubricating oil.
The vacant riverfront property where the DeLaval plant was located is the last remaining vacant city-owned land on the Poughkeepsie waterfront. Poughkeepsie has issued a Request for Expression of Interest (RFEI) to identify qualified organizations that have both the experience and financial, design and construction capabilities to successfully complete a redevelopment project.
“This is a key opportunity for the city and the community to see their visioning of the southern waterfront come to fruition,” said Poughkeepsie’s Development Director Natalie Quinn. “For a confluence of reasons, this site has been idle for too long. The parcel is not only of historic significance, but it has the potential to play an essential role in an active, vibrant waterfront that helps to connect the city”™s southern and northern ends. We look forward to seeing what kind of innovative ideas are proposed for the best and most realistic use of the site.”
The city”™s development goals for the site include establishing mixed-use waterfront facilities and programming. It suggests there could be a mix of uses such as restaurants, a boutique hotel, docks, and water recreation. It also would like to see public gathering spaces and new landscaping. The city said that the site should become fiscally productive, contributing to tax revenue generation.
“Careful and strategic development of this waterfront property offers us tremendous opportunity for transformative change in the City of Poughkeepsie,” said Mayor Marc Nelson. “This RFEI will be well marketed, not only regionally but nationally as well.”
Nelson said that proposals should take into account the city’s Comprehensive Plan and Local Waterfront Revitalization Program.
I hope this goes well. There have been many attempts at this with limited success. It is a nice spot along the river.