About the Depot District

The end-of-year message on the Galvan Foundation Facebook page features the rendering for what's being called "the Depot District." 

This inspired Gossips to review what we already know about Galvan's plans for this part of the city. The Google image below shows the Depot District before the historic Hudson Orphan Asylum, a building acquired by Eric Galloway in 2006, was demolished in March of this year.

The centerpiece of the district and the structure that gives it its name is Hudson Upper Depot, the train station built in 1871 on the Hudson & Berkshire Railroad in Hudson. 

Photo courtesy Pat Fenoff, City of Hudson Historian

The building is to become a craft brewery. The plans for its meticulous restoration were granted a certificate of appropriateness by the Historic Preservation Commission in October, and the plans for its adaptive reuse were given site plan approval by the Planning Board in December. Interestingly, the plans presented to the Planning Board were for the building itself and the "parklike setting" that is to be created where there is now an expanse of asphalt but made no mention of the 75-unit mixed-income residential and commercial development for which, it was announced at the beginning of November, the Galvan Foundation had won a $1 million Buildings of Excellence Award from NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) to "facilitate the project's design, development, and completion." When it was suggested that looking at the plans for the depot in isolation might constitute segmentation, then Planning Board chair Walter Chatham said, "We have to look at this on its own merits." He went on to say that implementation of the whole plan was "years away, and it may never happen." He further commented that the plan for the new building "doesn't negatively impact this" and "nothing is being concealed."

Another thing of interest about the site plan review was that, although the proposal to amend the city's zoning to eliminate offstreet parking requirements originated with the Planning Board, in its review of this project that same body fretted about the intention to provide no offstreet parking on the depot site, relying instead on available onstreet parking and a five-year contract with the owners of 1 City Centre to use twenty spaces in their lot just across the railroad tracks. In the end, it was agreed that there would be one designated handicapped parking space either on the street or somewhere on the site. 

But how far might future plans for the Depot District extend? In 2017, Gossips reported that there was one missing piece to Galvan's owning a solid block of buildings at the corner of State and Seventh streets, just across the street from the depot. That was 618 State Street. Galvan owned 620 State Street, the former orphanage; Galvan owned 61-63 North Seventh Street, the former Canape Motors building; Galvan owned the building on the alley immediately behind 618 State Street; but Galvan did not own 618 State Street. In 2017, 618 State Street was sold in a tax auction, but the sale was challenged because the person bidding for the Galvan LLC Hudson Realty Collective was Judge Jack Connor.

In the ensuing two years, the perceived problems with the sale have apparently been worked out, because the owner of 618 State Street is now listed in the tax roles as Hudson Collective Realty LLC. 

Galvan also owns two of the three houses on the west side of North Seventh Street between the old Canape Motors building and the Central Fire Station: 69-73 North Seventh Street, acquired in 2014, and 75 North Seventh Street, acquired in 2013--the two houses at the right in this Google image. 

Now that the historic Hudson Orphan Asylum is gone, its bricks destined to be used to make masonry repairs to the Hudson Upper Depot, who knows what plans there might be for the Depot District beyond those already revealed?

Photo: Stephen McKay

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