Hello, Collar City! This is Issue 35, dated May 17, 2019.



Hello, everyone! In this issue: The city's fourth Downtown Revitalization Initiative application in as many years, a land bank sale and (potential) save, a partial look at the 1MSQ selection committee, the future of the Neff, and more.



Special thanks, once again, to

In this issue: The city's fourth Downtown Revitalization Initiative application in as many years, a land bank sale and (potential) save, a partial look at the 1MSQ selection committee, the future of the Neff, and more.Special thanks, once again, to TL's 145 Patreon supporters , who make this newsletter possible!

DRI Round Four

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One Monument Square Civic Plaza | $10 million total cost | $3 million DRI request Soldiers and Sailors Square at the Monument | $700,000 | $500,000 Waterfront Public Space Project (includes funds for downtown playground, riverfront esplanade extension, "Monument Square landing," "family-friendly" Riverfront Park redesign, marina development, and more) | $10.6 million | $4.05 million Public Art Master Plan Implementation | $550,000 | $350,000 One Monument Square: Mixed-Use Private Development | $40 million | $4 million First Columbia Residential North and South, Commercial Mixed-Use and Parking | $49 million | $2 million The Dockside Mixed-Use Project with Parking | $8.7 million | $2 million River Walk at 171 River St. (described in TL27) | $5.4 million | $500,000 Troy Savings Bank Music Hall | $4.5 million | $500,000 The Arts Center of the Capital Region: Facade | $530,000 | $250,000 Troy Local Development Corporation: Taylor Apartments | $75 million | $2 million The Trojan Hotel | $7.8 million | $500,000 DRI Revolving Loan Fund | $8 million | $2 million DRI Website, Information Kiosks, & Wayfinding | $230,000 | $50,000

Land Bank Roundup

At a public meeting at the Troy Innovation Garage on Tuesday night, the city revealed the not-finalized list of projects it intends to include in its fourth application for an award of $10 million in state funds through Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The city will again be competing with other municipalities in the broader Capital Region (encompassing Warren, Washington, Saratoga, Schenectady, Rensselaer, Albany, Greene, and Columbia counties) for the big prize.The catchment area of Troy's proposal this year will essentially consist of the waterfront area from the Collar City Bridge to Division Street. Below are the proposal's tentative priority projects, according to an info sheet made available at the meeting.(A caveat, as planning commissioner Steve Strichman pointed out during the meeting, is that municipalities that win the award must then embark on a planning phase that allows for changes to be made to this list.)I hadn't before heard of the Dockside project, located at 219 and 221-223 River St., properties owned by Judge Development Corp. The project is envisioned to include 26 apartments, four retail spaces, and 20 basement parking spaces, according to a slideshow shown at the meeting.Margaret Irwin of River Street Planning & Development has worked on this year's proposal without compensation, she said after the meeting. (Her firm was hired by city and county–affiliated economic development agencies to put together the city's proposal last year.)Proposals for non-NYC regions are due at the end of this month. "Prior to submission, applicants must have held a minimum of one meeting or event to solicit public input on the community vision and potential projects," according to the competition's website

The city-affiliated Troy Community Land Bank met on Wednesday to discuss several matters.



The board authorized the sale of 3235 Seventh Ave—the site of a recently demolished brick building—for $6,000 to Pawel Paliwoda, who intends to build a structure with four apartments and one storefront space, a project that may take up to two years to complete.



The board will hold a special meeting next Thursday morning to potentially award a contract for the demolition of 791 River and the construction of a three-story, mixed-use building (further described and pictured in TL31) at the site. Bids for the job were due on Monday.



The board voted to accept a donation of 3325 Sixth Avenue—a vacant, two-story residence in North Central—and $75,000 to stabilize the property from Ocwen Financial Corporation, a mortgage servicing company. (As of the time of the Wednesday meeting, the land bank was still awaiting a letter proposal from Ocwen detailing the terms of the acquisition.)



The building has a roof that needs to be replaced, a chimney that needs to be deconstructed, and some masonry that has deteriorated, land bank director Tony Tozzi said. Inside, water from the roof has caused plaster on the second and first floors to collapse, but "there hasn't been really any structural damage that we could find at all," he added. Ocwen's proposed cash donation should be "more than enough" to cover stabilization work, Tozzi said.



A neighboring property owner's complaint to code enforcement eventually led to this tentative deal. After an inspection, the city marked the building for an emergency demolition. But Steve Pierce, executive director of Media Alliance, the nonprofit that operates the Sanctuary for Independent Media, helped to orchestrate negotiations with Ocwen regarding the possible donation. (I regularly appear on, and occasionally host, Hudson Mohawk Magazine, a nightly news show broadcast on WOOC 105.3 FM, the Sanctuary's low-power radio station.) Tozzi said several other people, including Barb Nelson (TAP), Joe Fama (the land bank's former interim director), and Eric Ferraro (a city code enforcement officer) also played a role in helping to save the building from demolition.



"This building could not have been saved without the land bank," Pierce said at the meeting. "The bank would not have donated it to us, despite our record on the block. They wanted the assurance of the land bank's backing." Pierce said he hoped the building in the future would become part of the Media Alliance's planned environmental education center, which is already slated to include one nearby building and an adjacent vacant lot.



1MSQ Selection Committee

Steve Strichman, the city's planning commissioner Dylan Turek, the city's economic development coordinator Katie Hammon, executive director of the Downtown Troy BID Heidi Knoblauch, owner of Plumb Oyster Bar and board chair of the Troy IDA, CRC, and LDC

What's Next for the Neff?

Other News

A Misspelling & a Clarification

Links

Events

On Tuesday, at the DRI meeting, I asked planning commissioner Steve Strichman to identify the members of the committee that will help to select the preferred developer for 1 Monument Square. (ICYMI: Four firms/teams responded to the request for qualifications .) He partly obliged, naming four of the six members:I asked Strichman for the names of the two unidentified people on Wednesday and again on Thursday, but he did not provide them. Strichman had said on Tuesday that one unidentified member was an architect and the other was a landscape architect/engineer, but he did not confirm on Thursday if that was still the case. Stay tuned?According to the RFQ, the committee will rate the responding firms on financial/organizational capacity (30%), project/community understanding (30%), and relevant project experience (40%).As you may already know, last summer, The Sage Colleges put the Neff Center —a 26,000-square-foot athletic facility just south of the Poestenkill— up for sale At the city council's informational meeting at the ICC on Wednesday night, deputy mayor Monica Kurzejeski said that The Community Builders has been "having conversations" with the Boys & Girls Club about the complex.Kurzejeski also said that she'd heard the city school district is "interested" in the property, too.I reached out for comment to The Community Builders (TCB), Troy City School District, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Capital Area, and Jim Conroy (the listing agent) to try to find out the pending fate of the Neff, which is listed at $1,370,000.A TCB project manager, Melissa Cherubino, said the developer would help to secure state funding through New York State Homes and Community Renewal for a potential Boys & Girls Club at the Neff Center "but it would have to be in connection with" TCB's proposed Poestenkill Place project nearby for it to be "eligible" for those NYSCHR funds.TCB is currently in talks with NYSCHR, "and they are supportive of the Boys and Girls Club at Neff project," Cherubino said.Justin Reuter, chief executive officer of the local Boys & Girls Clubs organization, told me: "Plans for this partnership are being considered but it is very premature to discuss at this time."A spokesperson for the city school district did not return a request for comment.Conroy, the listing agent, said he could not share any information at this time. "Stay tuned," he said., which Lee Cohen, in a phone conversation on Wednesday, described as non-food-service-related."If the perfect situation came, we'd consider [it]," Cohen told me. "But we're not, really, actively looking to close the shop." The property was a stop on the Downtown Troy BID's spring "For Rent" event on Tuesday., according to a resolution posted on its website. "The duties of the Executive Director require him to travel to and over undeveloped parcels of land in the County, often accompanied by property owners or potential developers," the resolution says, in part., Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office announced this week . Nonprofit organizations receiving funding include Unity House; TRIP; TAP; Ark, Inc.; and Troy Boys and Girls Club.. The original court had found that "because petitioner"—referred to as "John Doe" in court papers—"was not an RPI student and the alleged misconduct took place off campus, respondents lacked jurisdiction under [their] policy and, as such, the determination was arbitrary and capricious." The court also blocked RPI "from giving the complaint and investigation record to SUNY Albany," John Doe's school around the time of the complaint, according to the appellate ruling.. The DA's salary "is tied to the County Court Judge salary," the resolution says, which the state Office of Court Administration has recently increased. The increase will be funded by "personnel savings" in the 2019 budget "due to vacant Assistant District Attorney positions," according to the resolution. This morning, I asked the DA's office to elaborate on the reason for (and number of) the vacant positions but didn't immediately hear back.The "paint on the interior walls" of the Rensselaer County Courthouse "has begun to show significant wear in many areas, causing an undesirable appearance," the legislature says in a resolution awarding a $69,785.26 contract to a Rensselaer firm, Capital Painting Contractors, for the requisite painting and patching work.Also, a "leak had developed in the roof of the Ceremonial Courtroom" of the same court house, another resolution states, resulting "in damage to the interior wall of the courtroom requiring specialized repair to the ornamental plaster molding and plaster wall." A Troy firm, Poulin & Sons, has won a $9,500 for that repair work, which is "fully reimbursable" by the state.Finally, "the chiller unit has begun to fail and is in need of replacement to ensure proper climate control" of the Rensselaer County Family Court Building. Johnson Controls of Albany has been awarded the $57,236.94 job.I misspelled attorney Michael Ginsberg’s last name. Sorry about that!, in a section on First Columbia's holdings in Troy, I wrote that the real-estate company controls "state-owned land beneath the Collar City Bridge, which the city council last year ensured will remain under First Columbia's control for another 10 to 30 years , along with—heading east now—four other, smaller lots near or under the bridge and a three-plus acre lot encircled by an on-ramp and Sixth Ave." The link led to a resolution that was passed by the city council in July 2018, which effectively would have made First Columbia a sub-licensee of the city, which itself held a license for use of the land from the state.This week, however, the city clerk informed me that the mayor did not actually endorse this resolution after the council passed it. In a statement accompanying his non-endorsement , the mayor wrote, "I have chosen to take no action on this Resolution as I have been informed that the NYS Department of Transportation has informed the City of Troy that DOT will rescind the license they have granted the City of Troy on the subject property and they will deal directly with First Columbia with respect to the use of this property."I asked a DOT spokesperson on Thursday afternoon why the agency opted for this course of action and what terms it settled on with First Columbia, but I haven't heard back yet. Little Rice Ball in Troy is closing at end of month (TU, 5/13) Troy wins police dog bite case (TU, 5/14) Troy tries to sort out parking situation (TU, 5/15) A former church in Troy serves the community in new ways (The Collaborative, 5/16). I wrote this! What Rosenblum learned from The News apartments for its next project in Troy (ABR, 5/16) Mayor Madden: City Advancing South Troy Waterfront Revitalization Plan (5/16). I included some details on this in TL27 Troy plans to study future of fire department (TU, 5/16). "The fire department’s staffing levels, the condition of the deteriorating firehouses, the equipment, safety, and training must be studied, Madden said." Troy police tactical team wins state competition (TU, 5/16) Captain JP III back in operation following costly repairs (TU, 5/16) One Year Later: Troy's $24 million critical fix to hold back the Hudson River (ABR, 5/17). "About half of the [seawall] project has been completed, according to the city. The city expects the entire project to be finished by the end of December, depending on the weather."Tonight, celebrate spring (and shop) at The Church. Buy plants at Capital Roots HQ tomorrow morning and/or tour some historic homes on Second Street to support the Rensselaer County Historical Society. Sunday, make your own candle at Bard & Baker Monday night, see Grease at the Palace Theatre in Albany. Compete in Jurassic Park Trivia at Rare Form on Wednesday night. On Thursday, tour more than two dozen backyard gardens as part of the annual annual Hidden Garden Tour. And/or: Meet up at 518 Craft at 6 P.M. with the Collar City Runners Club for a run.That's it! TL is a free, weekly email newsletter sent out every Friday. A fraction of its subscribers make monthly contributions to help keep it alive and sustainable via Patreon . Reply to this email with tips, comments, questions, story ideas, etc. to help keep TL interesting. If this issue was forwarded to you, or if you're reading it online, click here to sign up to receive future ones via email . Read past issues—and access a linked, shareable version of this issue— here . TL36 drops next Friday!