Progress on City DRI Projects

On Wednesday, the DRI Committee met to review the status of the three projects--Promenade Hill, BRIDGE District connectivity, and the Dunn warehouse--and initiate the discussion of the fourth--the Historic Fishing Village, a.k.a. "the Shacks."

On the subject of the restoration and renovation of Promenade Hill, the committee plans a "kick-off site walk" with Starr Whitehouse, the firm hired to oversee the project, on March 23 at some undetermined time. It is anticipated that there will be an eight-month design process, including a "mobile workshop" in mid-April, followed by a series of meetings after a design is developed. The schedule for the project, which appears to have construction beginning in December 2020, can be viewed here.

The BRIDGE District connectivity project is still awaiting a revised contract and a schedule. The project is expected to involve a "publicly focused design exercise," following the tactical urbanism approach to test out ideas by staging temporary improvements. Chris Round, the consultant from the Chazen Companies who is acting as DRI project manager, said this project is likely to be done in two phases: (1) build consensus behind an entire design; (2) match what can be accomplished with the money available. This project is getting the lion's share of DRI funding: $4,232,550.

Regarding the Dunn warehouse, no one at the meeting knew when the contract with Tecta America WeatherGuard LLC to do the short-term stabilization to the roof had been signed, so no one knew when the 21-day period during which the work was guaranteed to be completed had begun. (This is being handled by Commissioner of Public Works Peter Bujanow, who was not present at Wednesday's meeting.) Round reported making minor changes to the request for expressions of interest (REI) and distributed the revised document to the members of the committee. (That document can be found here.) During the meeting, changes were made to the schedule (on page 13 of the REI) to give members of the committee more time to review the proposals, which are due on Friday, April 10.

On the topic of the Furgary Boat Club, a.k.a. "the Shacks," now known as the Historic Fishing Village, Round had prepared a draft RFP (request for proposal) for a landscape architecture firm to design a "historical, cultural, interpretive park." It was proposed that $20,000 of the $191,290 available for the project would go for a master plan that would define the themes for interpretation and "articulate what the vision is, so you have a clear path forward." The plan is to post the draft RFP on the city website for public comment before it is released. That hasn't happened yet.

At the end of the meeting, when public comment was invited, Timothy O'Connor, who was one of the driving forces in getting the DRI money for "the Shacks," spoke of "mission creep." He explained that the original intent was "to take the money and shore up the worthy shacks." He asserted that "the code fixes a limited vision for what can be done."

Joe Gallo, a former Furgarian, asked, "You're going to use tax dollars for what the fishermen did for free?" 

Leo Bower suggested that the site needed a historic marker to commemorate the "hunting, fishing, and trapping community" that used the site. Billy Shannon, who has written about the Shacks for the New York Times, suggested the site should include some kind of museum of river fishing. Dylan Meyer expressed the opinion, "We have so much human capital in Hudson, people willing to donate their time and passion. We just need to gather it together and put it to good use." He went on to suggest that the City needed a "Parks and Land Use Department to deal with this."

Bower asked who would take down the shacks that it was determined would be demolished. Meyer suggested that volunteers could do it. When he was told demolition would involve asbestos removal, he contended that volunteers could be trained to do asbestos removal. "This is something that everyone in Hudson should be a part of," he asserted.

Back in August 2015, the Common Council authorized an expenditure of not more than $11,262 for asbestos and lead-based paint testing on the shacks. The understood reason at the time for doing the testing was to determine which shacks, if any, had no hazardous material issues and could be demolished by the Department of Public Works and which shacks would require demolition by a crew trained to deal with hazardous materials. If there is indeed a group of people "willing to donate their time and passion," it seems this study, done in 2015, could be used to determine which shacks are free of asbestos and lead-based paint and could be demolished by volunteers. Perhaps the study could be made available in the DRI Document Center on the City of Hudson website.

Update: Superintendent of Public Works Rob Perry just informed me that the hazardous materials study is available on the City of Hudson website and has been since 2015, on the DPW page. It can be viewed by clicking here.
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