July 25th, 2008
Hudson Redevelopment News
According to the Poughkeepsie Journal, redevelopment plans for the former Hudson River State Hospital campus are moving forward: 750 Housing Units Are Planned. In addition to the 750 housing units, developers Hudson Heritage and the Community Preservation Corporation want to create 350,000 square feet of commercial space, most of which would be for retail purposes.
While the article doesn’t explain how the Kirkbride building fits into this plan, a CPC representative is quoted as stating almost definitively that the south wing (damaged by fire last year) will be torn down. They’re planning to replace it with something “similar to the existing historic structure.” I’ve always thought that these particular developers really value this Kirkbride and respect its character. So I’m hopeful they’ll work some magic here. I can’t help but worry though that a replacement wing just won’t be the same.
I guess it would be better than nothing at all. It’s such a shame that fire had to happen.
CPC is the developer on this? Shit. I hadn’t realized they were one of the Hudson partners.
You’re wrong about these developers valuing the character of the building; they don’t care about valuable historic buildings at all. Case in point: the Domino Sugar refinery on the Brooklyn waterfront. They fought tooth and nail against it being landmarked, and then they prepared to fight saving the iconic sign on the factory until finally agreeing to save it in return for getting their plans approved.
Their “plans” involve putting an ugly-ass glass addition on the main refinery building, demolishing most of the other historic structures, and completely gutting the interior, saving only the facade. Which is going to have an ugly glass condo box on top, and thus not look like a historic part of the brooklyn waterfront at all.
Lame.
I didn’t know that, but still, if they didn’t care about the Kirkbride at all they could easily have pointed to the wreckage even before the fire and said, “We can’t rebuild this. It’s got to be torn down.”
I can’t see any reason for them wanting to keep it and building a replacement wing other than that they have an interest in preserving it. Sure their interest may not be the same thing as yours and mine – it’s much more commercially oriented. But I still believe they have some sort of incentive to maintain the building’s historical character.
Then again maybe there’s more than meets the eye here and I’m just being naive. It wouldn’t be the first time.
great find on the article btw, I was home on military leave and went over to hudson a few times and was surprised to find steve still working at securing the buildings and such.
it will be interesting to see what renders the development company will put out for the new south wing … its a shame the emergency crews had to put so many trench cuts in the building.
thanks for keeping an eye on the project!
The wings are totaled, there are no floors left at all. The main building seems intact for now. I even found that the wing that didnt burn had no floors left also. It is an unsafe building. The main admin building (front of the building)needs preserved, but the wings need to come down. The worst shame is the other building on this site. The back building would have made a great youth center, it housed a bowling alley, food kitchen, pool and classrooms. It was built quite recently. Between kids destroying it and some law inforcement agency using the inside of the buildings for live fire training the building is destroyed. The were spent rounds and target posters everywhere. The spent rounds were non leathel rounds. Law enforcement only have access to this style round. Well its just sad.