Another Improvement for the Public Square

As the Friends of the Public Square (FOPS) pursues improvements and enhancements to Seventh Street Park, a significant building on the perimeter of the park, 702-704 Columbia Street, is soon to get a much needed restoration.

The proposed project will create a restaurant space and two retail spaces on the ground floor of the building and four residential units on the second and third floors and involves restoring the facade and building an addition at the rear. Although the building is adjacent to the so-called "Depot District," this is not a Galvan Foundation project. 

What is being proposed for the building was presented to the Planning Board for site plan review on Tuesday, March 8. The application submitted to the Planning Board can be found here. The Planning Board declared the project a Type II action, not requiring SEQR review, referred the project to the Columbia County Planning Board for a recommendation, and scheduled a public hearing on the project for April 12.

On Friday, the project went before the Historic Preservation Commission. In the presentation to the HPC, some interesting information emerged about the building. Most interesting is that the plywood panels at the top of the windows on the second and third floors were installed to hold rectangular storm windows. Amazingly, the original arched windows survive behind those panels.

The plan is to restore the windows to their original arched configuration. The proposal was to replicate and replace them, but the HPC asked the applicant to consider repairing and restoring the original wood windows instead of replacing them.

The plan was also to restore the existing storefronts, but Chip Bohl, architect member of the HPC, suggested that the storefront as it exists today is "not original and not worth restoring." 

Bohl asked the applicant to find historic pictures of the building to assist in determining what the original configuration of the storefronts might have been. 

Gossips was able to find these historic images and share them with the applicant. In each, the building appears in the background. 

Photo: Columbia County Historical Society

Of these, the final image, the subject of which, of course, is the Venus fountain that once stood in Seventh Street Park, provides the best view of 702-704 Columbia Street. Here is that detail enlarged.

Bohl called 702-704 Columbia Street "a handsome building" with "a lot of the original materials still there." He went on to say, "Its restoration is going to be important to the park and the community." 

If any readers have or know of historic photographs of the building that could help guide the restoration, please share them with Gossips at carole@gossipsofrivertown.com. I will pass them along to the applicant and the HPC.

COPYRIGHT 2022 CAROLE OSTERINK