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Three Roles Seen for Hospital
10.17.1993
by Larry Fisher-Hertz
The Poughkeepsie Journal
Consultants outline alternative uses for Harlem Valley site
Dover Plains – The Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center property could be converted into a mix of industrial and commercial uses, but the best bet for the 961-acre campus might be as a multi-dimensional facility for retirees.
Those were the findings of a group of consultants hired to prepare a marketing strategy for the 72-year-old Wingdale facility when state mental health officials closet it next year.
Representatives of the consulting team, headed by John Rahenkamp of John Rahenkamp Consultants, Inc., discussed the plan publicly for the first time Saturday morning at a forum at Dover High School.
About 100 local officials and other residents attended.
Here are the proposals:
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1. Convert the entire campus into a mix of traditional residential development and various kinds of housing for senior citizens, including apartments and a70-bed nursing home. This would include certain kinds of commercial development, such as insurance and medical offices.
2. Attract an industry that could use the facility’s existing power plant an then add other residential and commercial uses, while retaining the existing state Division for Youth facility, which employs 360 people.
3. Eliminate the youth facility, which would enable the community to attract a wider variety of other kinds of development and make the probability of attracting a nursing home more likely.
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Rahenkamp representatives said they believed “A” was the most attractive alternative because demand for facilities for the elderly was growing and because it would probably generate the most jobs and other economic benefits for the region.
All three proposals call for between 200 and 300 units of traditional homes and apartments, a farmers’ market and food distribution facility, a town hall complex, a small commercial or industrial “incubator” facility and maintaining operation of the golf course.
Local officials will have to find ways to implement one of these plans – or parts of all of them – after the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center, one of the region’s major employers for the past 50 years, closes next February. The last of the facility’s patients and staff are scheduled to be transferred to Hudson River Psychiatric Center in the Town of Poughkeepsie by Feb. 28, 1994. The state Office of Mental Health has agreed to maintain the buildings and grounds of the facility until 1995.
Ideas win support
Reaction to the plans proposed Saturday morning was generally favorable.
“We have many challenges ahead of us, but this is a good start,” said Dover Town Supervisor Bruce Grecke. “The town board will play a role in determining the final product, and we will hope to have enough data by the end of the year to begin that process.”
Grecke said one private firm, Connecticut-based National Energy Systems, had already made initial inquiries about using the psychiatric center’s power plant to generate energy for a recycling center and developing other uses for the campus.
Roger Akeley, Dutchess County’s Commissioner Planning and Development, said he was impressed by the work the consulting team had done, but he cautioned that the community had a lot of work to do before any such plans came to fruition.
“The plans all have a long-term benefit for the community, and the county,” Akeley said.
“Now it’s up to the community to make it happen. We’ve got some good ideas. Now we’ve got to get organized.”
Peter Van Kleeck, president of Pawling Savings Bank and chairman of the Harlem Valley Partnership, a consortium of business and civic leaders, said the Partnership planned to seek public input on all of the proposals suggested by the consultants over the next several months. Once a consensus is reached on a single plan of action, the partnership plans to return to state officials and hammer out the details of developing the site, Van Kleeck said.
The partnership obtained a $50,000 state grant to hire the consulting team to determine the best and mot marketable uses for the land.
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