The Shawangunk Journal

By Lisa Carroll

ELLENVILLE – A recent seminar entitled “Downtown Turnaround: Restoring the Promise of our Population Centers” has inspired some interesting thoughts for the local area, Ellenville mayor Jeff Kaplan said.

The event — part of a three-year Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress project, the Urban Action Agenda, designed to better develop policies and strategies for the revitalization of some of the Hudson Valley’s urban centers — is centered around discussions on urban transportation, downtown housing and mixed-use development in 25 area communities, including Ellenville. The recent discussion was led by Tom Murphy, senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute and former mayor of Pittsburgh.

One of the things Murphy discussed, Kaplan said, was how the Pittsburgh mayor didn’t want to be a mayor of an area in decline, and instead looked for a plan to revitalize his city. A similar scenario, our mayor went on, has been playing out in Ellenville for some time, reaching a crescendo with the failure of the state casino board to grant a license to the Nevele resort outside the village and a rush of activity to come up with new revitalization plans, including the recently announced Ellenville Million spending breakdown.

Coming out of the seminar, Kaplan said that village officials including manager Joseph Stoeckeler and building inspector Brian Schug have been kicking around some ideas and think they’ve landed on something worthwhile. They’re looking at ways of taking the current condition of Center and Canal Streets… and raising the bar.

“We’re looking to spruce up the area,” Kaplan said, noting talk about searching out funds and partnerships for a new community recreation center, as well as the possibility of college courses being offered in the Hunt Memorial building. The idea would be for residents to be able to fulfill all their needs within a five to ten minute walk.

Years ago, the mayor continued, there was a migration out of urban areas. But now that baby boomers are aging, and newer generations rise to power, caring for a two to three acre lot no longer fits into the ideal contemporary lifestyle.

“It’s just not as appealing,” Kaplan said. “If you can create the right environment — a nice livable housing stock and walkable downtown area — it could be very appealing to a mass of consumers interested in that.”

Part of reconfiguring downtown, Stoeckeler added, includes taking a look at the parking available in the area, building out the bus shelter on Canal, and adding in bike racks to encourage pedestrians and cyclists. All similar, he added, to the proposed work and concentration of the Complete Streets committee the village has been working with throughout the past year.

Stoeckeler added that the village is also interested in reviewing the condition of apartments in the downtown area.

“Shop owners after World War II and into the late 1950s lived above their shops, keeping them well. Then in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s those types of apartments were prohibited,” Stoeckeler said.

He added that when such apartments were allowed again, they became a place of “last chance” for tenants and have been looked upon unfavorably ever since even though the greater trend is now shifting again, with younger imports from cities looking for walkable communities and mixed-use buildings.

This, both the mayor and manager agreed, is something Ellenville could and should capitalize on.

Apart from such planning, building inspector Brian Schug noted how the village continues to grow, as evidenced by the amount of activity he’s seen in the building department over the past two years, which he characterized as greater than anything he’s seen in a decade.

“It was stagnant for quite some time with commercial development,” he said. “Now it’s forty percent of our business.”

Moving forward, Kaplan added, the village will be looking towards conducting viability/marketing studies to determine the success of the various endeavors under consideration. In addition, ways to work the new Ellenville Million incentives into the village agenda will be key.

Stay tuned…