About 11 Warren Street

Over the years, Gossips has shared the history of the strikingly out-of-place structure at 11 Warren Street on several occasions, the first time being in 2013, when word was out that Galvan going to buy the building from COARC. Now that it's been announced that the County intends to buy the building from Galvan, for close to $2 million more than Galvan paid for it ten years ago, I am inspired to share the history of the building again, because it was a disastrous mistake for the building to have been constructed in the first place, and the County's action ensures that Hudson will have to continue to live with this mistake for a few more decades.

The building at 11 Warren Street is a monument to wrong-headed urban development. It was meant to be shopping center, with off-street parking, to lure people back to Hudson from the strip malls that were popping up along Fairview Avenue in Greenport in the late 1960s and early 1970s. An entire block of 19th-century buildings, with the exception of one building, was demolished during Urban Renewal to be replaced by this wannabe suburban bad idea. This vintage photograph shows some of the buildings that were lost.

This is the building that stood at the southwest corner of Warren and First streets.

The screen capture below, from the 1959 film Odds Against Tomorrow, shows the first block of Warren Street in the late 1950s--intact on both north and south sides.

This picture of the block was taken in 1973, before the demolition that was Urban Renewal began.

In 1975, a developer from Schenectady named Howard Goldstock built the one-story complex--totally out of character with the surrounding neighborhood--and dubbed it Parkview Plaza, a name inspired by its proximity to Promenade Hill. Goldstock promised to fill the plaza with retail businesses--an anchor store at the east end and smaller shops in the remainder--but he never made good on that promise. In 1978, after a lengthy foreclosure proceeding, the building, still unfinished, was sold at public auction on the steps of the Columbia County courthouse as, to quote the Register-Star from August 3, 1978, "disinterested county employees and visitors strolled by."

The buyer, who paid $200,000 for the three-year-old white elephant, was the Hudson City Savings Institution, the very bank that had originally financed the project. (The Hudson City Savings Institution, chartered in 1850, morphed into Hudson River Bank & Trust in 1998 and was sold to First Niagara in 2005, which in turn was acquired by Key Bank in 2016.) William Fisher, who was mortgage operations vice president for HCSI at the time, was quoted in the Register-Star as saying, "We are now pursuing all avenues to try to come up with a viable use [for the building] that will be mutually beneficial to the community and the bank."

In 1981, COARC established Promenade Hill Center, a day activity program, in the building. That use continued until 2013, when COARC moved out, and Galvan bought the building. Initially, it was rumored that Eric Galloway intended to demolish the ill-fated strip mall and re-create in its place the buildings that once were there, but that never happened. In the ten years that Galvan has owned the building, its only use has been as the Warren Street Academy, an alternative high school program that opened in 2016 and closed in 2020. In 2021, Galvan proposed partnering with Benchmark Development of Great Barrington to construct a mixed-use building on the site, with market rate apartments, retail spaces, a restaurant, and underground parking. 

In the press release announcing the plan, Galvan said this about the project.

The project improves the streetscape and connectivity between Warren Street and the waterfront by replacing an unattractive and out-of-place building with a new mixed-use building designed to reflect the historic character of Hudson. . . .

The project furthers the goals set forth in the City of Hudson's vision for the BRIDGE District as part of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI). The city was awarded a $10 million DRI Grant from New York State which seeks to reestablish the link between downtown and the waterfront with quality housing, economic development, and beautiful, transportation-oriented design. 11 Warren Street revitalizes the connection of Warren Street and Front Street, linking Hudson's vibrant downtown to its waterfront parks and Amtrak station.

It is not known why the project was abandoned, but selling the building to the County to use as the location of the Probation Office and the Public Defenders Office and for storing voting machines achieves none of the goals outlined in that 2021 press release. 

Curious to know how this all came about, I contacted Claire Cousin, the county supervisor who represents the First Ward, my ward. When close to a day passed, and Cousin had not responded to my email, I contacted the other four Hudson supervisors--Abdus Miah (Second Ward), Michael Chameides (Third Ward), Linda Mussmann (Fourth Ward), and Rick Scalera (Fifth Ward)--to ask how they had voted when the question of buying 11 Warren Street came before the Board of Supervisors. More than a day has passed since I sent the email, and only Mussmann has responded. Mussmann told me that Cousin had not been present at the meeting on August 9. She, Mussmann, had not voted because she had to leave the meeting before the vote has taken, but she had spoken out against the purchase prior to the vote. She didn't know how Miah and Chameides had voted, since she wasn't present, but she said Scalera had recused himself because of his association with the Galvan Foundation.

Update: Gossips learned this morning from Kelly Baccaro, clerk of the Board of Supervisors, that the notes from the August 9 meeting had just been posted on the County website. Here is the information provided there. 

Request the Clerk to Read the Resolutions

Resolution numbers 301-2023 through 312-2023 were read. A motion to approve was made by M. Chameides seconded by T. Houghtling; motion carried unanimously. Resolution numbers 313-2023 through 325-2023 were read. A motion to approve was made by K. Weigelt, seconded by R. Knott, with a recusal from R. Scalera on Resolution #318-2023; motion was carried unanimously. A SEQR review was required on Resolution #318-2023 R. Fitzsimmons led the group through the SEQR process. A motion to declare a negative declaration for the 11 Warren Street property was made by R. Knott, seconded by J. Guzzi; motion was approved unanimously.

Supervisors - do they have any other business to bring before the Board?

T. Houghtling requested a meeting of the Space Utilization committee regarding the 11 Warren Street property.

As anyone who has attended a county Board of Supervisors meeting knows, the board votes on several resolutions at a time. Information provided allows one to infer that, of the thirteen resolutions voted on in the second block, the resolution regarding 11 Warren Street was Resolution #318-2023. Since the motion to approve the thirteen resolutions carried unanimously, it can be inferred that Hudson supervisors Abdus Miah (Second Ward) and Michael Chameides (Third Ward) voted in favor of the resolution. As Gossips reported earlier, Claire Cousin (First Ward) was absent, Linda Mussmann (Fourth Ward) had to leave the meeting before the vote was taken, and Rick Scalera (Fifth Ward) recused himself.

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