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Sale of Center Sought
1996
by Nicole R. Stokes
The Poughkeepsie Journal
WINGDALE – Arthur Callender, owner of CalClean Services, is tired of waiting for business to improve. He’s tired of waiting for the state to make a decision regarding one of the region’s most important assets. Callender and other Harlem Valley residents want the state to move forward with the sale of the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center.
Harlem Valley officials have been working for years to put the state-owned center, which was closed in 1994, to new use. They want to locate a mix of businesses and residences on the property to help rebuild the Town of Dover’s tax base. Only a small part of the facility is now used; the Division for Youth runs a prison for teen offenders at the site. Area residents want to know when the DFY will close, so the state can begin marketing the facility for private industry.
“The state is holding the town hostage,” Callender said. “With the facility just sitting there, it is a tax loss and a drain on our resources. We need to have more commercial and retail ventures to generate income for the town.”
Discussion between community leaders and Albany over the future of the facility dates back to 1993, when then-Gov. Mario Cuomo announced the closing of the facility, which includes several buildings and 961 acres of land. According to Kathleen Schibanoff, executive director of the Harlem Valley Partnership for Economic Development, plans to pique the interests of private-sector buyers began almost immediately.
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The partnership obtained a $50,000 grant from Urban Development Corp. to conduct a marketability study.
It hired an advisory service to research alternative uses for the facility.
It formed a task force of area business people, local government representative and community leaders to access community needs and find an economically viable solution for the Harlem Valley.
The task force held two public hearings and developed a proposal for use of the property.
Partnership officials say they have found potential buyers and developers for the center but that the state hasn’t given them the green light to proceed.
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Two factors have held up the sale of the facility, which once employed more than 5,000 people, mostly Harlem Valley residents.
First, the DFY prison has not closed, and no one seems to know when it will. Second, a state council charged with selling Harlem Valley and other state-owned sites wants to market them as a lot. That means Harlem Valley wound not be sold until some or all of the other properties the state (owns) are also sold.
The lack of progress prompted the Partnership to send a letter to Gov. George Pataki, pleading for him to intervene.
The letter asks that the Harlem Valley facility be sold separately.
Official: speed up process
The governor’s press office acknowledged receipt of the letter, but would not comment further.
“We have met all the state’s requirements on our end; our goal is to get to the point where the state will issue a Request for Proposal to potential buyers,” said Schibanoff.
Dover Town Supervisor Jill Way agrees that the process needs to speed up.
“We are frustrated with the endless delays; it is not equitable for a community, which has followed all of the states procedures and requirements, to wait for the sale of these other facilities,” she said. “We felt that special attention should be given to this community. We all want to broaden the tax base here and relieve the burden off of the individual property owners.”
State lawmakers also want to see the sale expedited.
“I firmly support the Partnership in any effort to move the executive branch along. The process is determining how they will dispose of this site has been excruciatingly long,” said Assemblyman Willis Stephens, Jr., R-Southeast. “The longer it sits there, the less it will be worth at the time of sale.”
State Sen. Vincent Liebell, R,C-Patterson, agrees. “I share their concerns that when (the facility) is marketed and sold, it should be for the good of the communities out there,” he said. “There are several factors that make this not an easy site to market: It is a large site with existing buildings, and the DFY is still there.”
When the DFY may close remains a mystery, although talk of its demise rises regularly.
James Cotter, a spokesman for Division for Youth, said the budget calls for the youth prison to remain open until April 1997. But whether the facility will remain open in the state’s next budget year is undecided, officials said.
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