Troy Kitchen, a food hall and restaurant incubator that opened three and a half years ago in Troy, this fall will debut its first sibling location, in downtown Albany. Fittingly, it will be called Albany Kitchen. An opening in late October or early November is projected.

It is being paid for by a property developer who didn’t believe in the Troy Kitchen concept when it was first pitched to him.

Cory Nelson, owner of Troy Kitchen and the forthcoming Albany Kitchen, took me on a tour of the new space, which will occupy both floors of a 4,500-square-foot building at 55 Columbia St., just steps down the hill from North Pearl Street and essentially behind The Hollow Bar + Kitchen. We were accompanied by Jeff Buell and Elizabeth Young, who are principal and vice president, respectively, of the building’s new owner, Redburn Development. The company, which has led development in Troy and Schenectady in recent years, is moving into downtown Albany in a big way, committing to an $82 million, nine-building project that includes the former Kenmore Hotel, Steuben Club, Capital Repertory Theatre and a large building at 16 Sheridan Ave. that was home to the Times Union and Knickerbocker News until the late 1960s and more recently a state office building. Now called The Knick, it is scheduled to begin welcoming tenants in its apartments next month.

Among the Redburn buildings are three on Columbia Street, between North Pearl and Broadway. The first to open will be home to Albany Kitchen, where, as in Troy, there will be a variety of quick-serve options offering $10-and-less food, a bar and a performance stage. The eight restaurant stalls, each independently operated and with its own kitchen area, will be on the upper floor, with seating, bar and stage on the street-level/basement room. Nelson has had 20 concepts cycle through Troy Kitchen since it opened in March 2016, four of which went on to open standalone locations. He tells me he has a similar vision for the Albany location: Ambitious operators, who have a viable concept but not necessarily the funds to open their own place, will lease a stall from him, benefiting from lower overhead and operational and marketing guidance from Nelson, who acknowledges he struggled at times in the Troy original, which he built and ran himself, encountering financial and regulatory challenges along the way. All of that experience is informing the development of Albany Kitchen, according to Nelson and Redburn.

“He came through that and made it happen,” says Buell. “When we saw what he was able to do, we wanted to have him be a part of what we’re doing in downtown Albany.” Nelson, now 30, grew up in Brooklyn and started a storage business while a student at Howard University in Washington. When he arrived in Troy, six years ago, Nelson was working as an independent contractor and consultant for the state. He became friendly with Vic Christopher and Heather LaVine of Clark House Hospitality, helping with their growth from the Lucas Confectionery to multiple other businesses, and he learned property development working for Buell, to whom he first suggested the idea of a food hall.

“I didn’t think it would work in that location,” says Buell, referring to Troy Kitchen’s home in a former market on Congress Street in the Collar City’s downtown. “I love being wrong about things like that.”

Redburn is spending about $700,000 to rehab and outfit 55 Columbia, which was built in 1948 and has been empty since 1999, when its last tenant, the Legal Aid Society, left, according to Buell and Young. They tell me when the downtown Albany historic district was formed, in 1978, the building was judged an unsightly, out-of-character “intrusion” that should be torn down.

“Now we’ve got a use for it that says, ‘We’re back!’ in a big way,” says Buell.