Hello, Collar City! This is Issue 32, dated April 26, 2019.

The proposed 600-space parking garage, which the planning commission approved in 2008 at a slightly larger scale (never built, obviously), essentially would offset the loss in parking associated with the new proposed development across the street, project manager Nathaniel Bette said last night. The open style of the steel structure would make it potentially adaptable to another use in the future, if parking were to become less important for office tenants.Commission chair Aaron Vera said he liked this potential adaptability and suggested that the developer consider adding some sort of vegetation to the structure.The new mixed-use building across the street from the garage will feature 78 residential units above commercial space, Bette said. The building may require a variance for height from the zoning board of appeals.The other new proposed building, farther north, between the Flanigan Square building and the Collar City Bridge, will feature three dozen residential units above commercial space.First Columbia did not display any visual renderings of the two newly proposed buildings, but I've linked to their respective site plans in the first paragraph of this section.The commission voted to become the lead agency for an environmental review of the projects. It also voted to notify the city council that the parking garage project would require the legislative body to authorize the transfer of title to a city right-of-way to First Columbia. The ROW is marked as N First St on Google Maps; I've circled it below.To zoom out for second:. They own or control nearly all the land on the west side of River St. between those two bounds (minus a few contiguous, skinny lots just south of Jay). That includes the Hedley Building, the Courtyard by Marriott, the Flanigan Square building, parking lots associated with those three buildings (portions of which, per the new plans, would be built upon), and 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.First Columbia also owns a cluster of vacant land on both sides of River St. between Vanderheyden and Jay streets. It owns six properties it purchased for a total of $150,000 from St. Peter's Church in 2015: a two-parcel parking lot (2311 & 2317 Fifth Ave), the former St. Peter's Hall (2301 Fifth Ave), the church across the street from the hall, the handsome rectory next to the church, and, next door, a dilapidated multi-family home that appears to be vacant.First Columbia owns another church, too: 494 River St., which is affixed with a red X. It also owns the large warehouse next door ( discussed as a possible site for a children's museum last year ). And it owns 2265 Fifth Ave, a two-unit row house that "has been vacant for some time and is in a severely distressed and unsafe condition," according to a resolution passed by the Troy Local Development Corporation in 2017 that authorized its sale for $100 to First Columbia. (Bette said Thursday that the developer intends to demolish it.)It also owns three other parking lots south of Hutton: the one across the street from the Hedley building, one at 2280 Fifth Ave, and one between Earl St and Old Sixth Ave.