Beacon’s new green waterfront conference center BY KATHY KAHN

Beacon’s new green waterfront conference center

BY KATHY KAHN

Brick factories, paper clips, Nabisco cracker boxes, IBM -- those were the industries Beacon was once made of. But one by one, manufacturers packed up and left, turning Beacon (www.cityofbeacon.org) into another mid-Hudson story of “the city that used to be.”

Beacon’s making its comeback big time. The first crack in the old façade came with the opening of Dia: Beacon in 2003, transforming the 292,000-square-foot former Nabisco factory into a cavernous art center drawing more than 60,000 people annually.

Metro-North saw the possibilities, too. They upgraded the Beacon train station, adding more parking and ferry service connecting Newburgh to the east side of the Hudson, bringing passengers to commuter trains. More importantly, the train and ferry will eventually bring visitors to Scenic Hudson’s planned 25 acres of parks, trails and docks at the waterfront. Its centerpiece will be Long Dock Beacon, an upscale hotel and conference center. Visitors will eventually be able to hike to the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries (www.thebeaconinstitute.org) along a connected riverfront trail. Yes, Beacon is a city that is beckoning city dwellers from the south, especially artists priced out of Manhattan’s high-rent districts.

Mayor Clara Lou Gould couldn’t be happier. In addition to the Harbor Management Team, the city is selling itself by virtue of its accommodations for artists, including the “Second Saturday” promotion that encourages stores and restaurants to stay open late. The former Beacon High School’s transformation to Bulldog Studios is slowly putting Beacon on the radar as an artists’ haven.

SCENIC HUDSON LEADS NEW PLANS

Beacon’s renewed marketability hasn’t been lost on developers or entrepreneurs, who have set their sights on the city they hope will become a mini-Manhattan. A place where bohemians will meld with three-piece-suits, and refugees from New York’s high-rent districts will bring their money and stay a while -- a good long while. The lure of small-scale city living has mass appeal to the worn-out cultural masses in Manhattan. For many, an hour’s trip by train from Beacon into midtown is comparable to the trip from Queens or Brooklyn, and worth the price if they can have their crème brulee and eat it, too. The city and savvy developers are counting on drawing upscale professionals and young families who want street life without street strife.

This time, it’s not Martin Ginsburg at the forefront of Beacon’s renaissance. It’s Scenic Hudson, who for 10 years was methodically buying up abandoned properties, piece by piece. Today, its investment has paid off, with a combined 25 acres of connected waterfront and a project called Long Dock Beacon they are developing with Foss Beacon Group (www.longdockbeacon.com), which will bring the city its first hotel and conference center.

In the fall of 2005, Matt Rudikoff, point man for Foss Beacon Group, gathered a group of both the curious and cautious, taking them on a tour of the proposed site for the new conference center.

With his Scenic Hudson baseball cap perched atop his head. Rudikoff took the group on a walking tour of abandoned, crumbling waterfront property that will soon become a showcase for “green” architecture and a model of what he says can be accomplished when environmentalists are not at loggerheads with builders.

Foss will lease the property from Scenic Hudson for 49 years with options to extend, while Scenic Hudson will create the park and promenade that will make Long Dock not just a great looking addition to the city’s waterfront but provide an economic return on the environmental group’s investment.

Original plans to build the entire hotel on piers above the 500-year flood plain haven’t changed but there’s no official rendering for the new hotel. “Right now, we are finalizing the design,” says Rudikoff; they’re up to 166 rooms and a ballroom that will accommodate between 300 guests to 500 guests, depending on whether they are standing or seated. The cost? Rudikoff’s not saying, but did relent and admit it will be more than the original $40 million projected in 2004. They are knee deep in negotiation with Doral Arrowwood in Tarrytown, who is to be the operator of this showplace on the Hudson.

There is no primary lender as yet, but Rudikoff says they are working on financing, as well as hammering out the details of their negotiations with Doral. “We’re still finalizing many aspects of this project,” says Rudikoff, who could not be pinned down to specifics -- except he is sure that they will break ground in 2008.

Developing a new hotel is a challenge in itself, but planning a green one is a whole new industry, with builders and planners on a learning curve.

For Rudikoff, the green he’s been publicly focusing on is the environmentally friendly amenities the building will eventually integrate into the design and construction. “Green construction is healthier for tenants … look at the survey the Albanese Group took of its tenants at Solaire, a 500-unit apartment building in Battery Park City. Tenants overwhelmingly say that clean air has greatly enhanced their quality of life,” says Rudikoff. “They breathe better, they sleep better and they feel better. We propose the same for our new conference center.”

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