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On August 1, 2017, Governor Andrew Cuomo came to town to deliver the news that Hudson was the Capital Region winner of $10 million in Round Two of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI). Tiffany Martin was the mayor of Hudson at that time.

In October 2018, after more than a year of workshops and planning and waiting, the City projects approved by the NYS Department of State to be funded with DRI money were announced. The following descriptions of the projects are quoted from a press release issued at the time by the mayor's office. Rick Rector was then the mayor of Hudson.

• Implement Complete Streets Improvements: Design and construct a phased Complete Streets initiative throughout the DRI area [i.e., everything below Second Street] to provide safe access, aesthetic improvements, and separation of truck traffic from pedestrians and bicyclists. Examples of improvements include safe and functional at-grade railroad crossing, streetscape improvements, bike lanes, extension of the North Bay trail, sidewalk and crosswalk improvements, pedestrian stairs, and signage. ($3,982,550)
• Renovate Promenade Hill Park and Provide ADA Access: Renovate Promenade Hill Park, and important public space in the heart of the DRI area, to preserve its historic features while providing access to park amenities and extraordinary views of the Hudson and the Catskills for people of all abilities. ($1,100,000)
• Improve the Safety and Aesthetics of Cross Street and the Second Street Stairs: Improve the safety and aesthetics of Cross Street and the Second Street stairs by designing and implementing streetscape improvements along Cross Street. This will include grading and repaving, new sidewalks, and lighting and replacement of the Second Street stairs leading from Allen Street to Cross Street. ($250,000)
• Stabilize the Dunn Warehouse for Future Re-Use: Stabilize the historic Dunn Warehouse, the City's last remaining central waterfront building, and conduct a feasibility study for its reuse. The City of Hudson will issue an RFP for a public/private partnership to adaptively reuse Dunn Warehouse based on recommendations in that study. Critical structural improvements will be made to exterior walls and masonry, the roof, and perimeter drainage, and a new concrete slab will be added. Remaining funds will be used for other interior renovations. ($1,000,000)
• Repurpose Historic Fishing Village as a City Park: Convert city-owned land containing a historic collection of fishing shacks into a waterfront park with access to the Hudson River. The project at the city's northern boundary will include the demolition of some of the shacks to open the space, as well as basic repairs to preserve more historically significant and visually interesting structures. DRI funds will be used for site cleanup, remediation, design services and site preparation. ($150,000)

The recent demolition of four shacks (11, 13, 15, and 16) at the "historic fishing village," a.k.a., the Furgary Boat Club, reportedly to show progress and support the City's request for an extension in implementing DRI funding, provides an occasion for reviewing all five of the City's DRI projects.

Today, more than five years after the City's DRI projects were determined, only one of the five projects has been completed: the redesign of the entrance to Promenade Hill. The project was completed in October 2022 and cost $750,000 more than the $1.1 million in DRI funds allocated for it.

The plan for the reuse of the Dunn warehouse may be underway, or maybe not. In April 2020, the City did a temporary repair to the roof of the building to arrest deterioration. 

In April 2023, the City issued an RFP (request for proposals) for the adaptive reuse of the building. It was not the first time such a request was issued, but it was the first time that a proposal received was considered acceptable. That proposal came from CGS Group, a partnership of Caitlin Baiada, Gabriel Katz, and Sean Roland, some of the same people involved in the restoration and adaptive reuse of the Pocketbook Factory. In October 2023, CGS Group entered into an agreement with the City, which involved a 90-day due diligence period. That due diligence period is set to end later this month, and then we will know if this DRI project will move forward or if it will be back to square one.

Early on, the project to improve the safety and aesthetics of Cross Street and the Second Street stairs was folded into the Complete Streets project, and the entire project became known as "Hudson Connects." Although the lion's share of DRI funding--slightly more than $4 million--was allocated for this project, at this point, very little is known about it. The last public workshop took place in September 2021, and the last update, posted on the project website on November 18, 2022, indicates: "Construction is anticipated for the spring of 2023." That didn't happen. 

It seems that the bids have come in way over budget, and the project keeps getting scaled back, but how it has been scaled back is not known. We do know that the fantastically ambitious plan for the Second Street stairs that appeared in early DRI documents has been reduced to repairing and painting the existing concrete stairs and adding a runnel so you can push your bicycle along while ascending or descending the stairs.

The plans for State Street may have been scaled back, or eliminated altogether, since the Hudson Housing Authority's plan for demolishing Bliss Towers and redeveloping its properties seems to involve closing State Street to vehicular traffic below Second Street.

Word is that the City will rebid the Hudson Connects project in the coming weeks, but what the project looks like at this point has not been shared with the public.

That brings us to the historic fishing village project. In the past two days, four of the seventeen shacks have been demolished--Shacks 11, 13, 15, and 16. The description of the project in the October 2018 press release mentions "repairs to preserve more historically significant and visually interesting structures." That part of the plan seems to have been abandoned. As Timothy O'Connor points out in a comment on this blog, two of the shacks that have already been destroyed (Shacks 13 and 16) were the oldest and most historically interesting. Shack 16 appears on the 1889 Sanborn map, as part of a trio of structures labeled "Fish Market." 

Detail from 1889 Sanborn map

Shack 13, O'Connor points out, "was significant enough to launch a new approach to maritime archaeology within the NYS Office of Historic Preservation." Apparently, the historic value of the shacks was not considered when deciding which shacks to demolish in order to demonstrate progress.

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