PLATTSBURGH — Prime Plattsburgh LLC’s recent decision to pivot from its previously proposed housing development for the Durkee Street parking lot to a different project was welcomed by the Plattsburgh Citizens Coalition.
“The City’s plan going forward is unclear, but PCC remains willing and eager to be involved and supportive of smart growth and responsible development of public waterfront properties,” PCC, a long-time opponent of the project, said in a statement last week.
DURKEE PROJECT
Prime planned to construct 109 residential market rate housing units, 13,400 square feet of commercial space and sufficient parking for a private sector investment of over $18 million dollars in the City of Plattsburgh’s downtown parking lot.
The project, called the Durkee Lot Mixed-Use Development (DLMUD), was a major keystone of the city’s $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) grant that was awarded by the state in 2016, and previously had $4 million of the DRI funds committed to it for offsetting construction costs.
The project never made headway as the city faced a string of court battles over the past few years from groups like PCC that opposed the development. The latest court battle was in the Court of Appeals, the highest court in New York, where the city was appealing a previous decision by a lower court that halted the project from moving forward.
However, before the case was heard, Prime decided to step away from the large scale development, forcing the city to bow out of the pending litigation.
FUTURE PLANS
Though Prime told the city it was still interested in pursuing a different project, Mayor Chris Rosenquest had recently said.
Specific details of whatever that project may be remain unknown, but while discussing the new direction Prime has decided to go at the last Common Council meeting, Rosenquest said “anecdotally, we talked about the change in the project,” and added that there is a housing piece to it.
“Again, we don’t have all the details to it,” he said.
“We have invited the developer to come and talk about that with the council. So when you all get the information, we’ll get the information at the same time.”
Rosenquest did confirm the proposed site of the project is not changing. He said the work they’ve done there to this point will make development there or anywhere in the city a clean transition moving forward.
“If anything, the work that we did leading up to … today creates a very distinct line between the City of Plattsburgh and the developer where there wasn’t one before,” he said.
“I appreciate the work that this council has done, there’s been significant work to clean that up, to make sure that any project — specifically there — but hopefully any project moving forward forever in the city, where it does include city-owned property, that the city does not become a co-developer or some type of co-applicant for a development project.”
Councilor Elizabeth Gibbs (D-Ward 3) asked if ESD (Empire State Development) would still be committing the $4 million funds.
Rosenquest said that it was the city’s understanding that ESD would be.
“Based on the couple of conversations we’ve had with the developer and with ESD is that there is still that money that is allocated directly to that developer for this project.”
He further clarified some misunderstandings about the funds and how they can be dispersed.
He said the city is in no way holding that money.
“This is a contract directly between New York state and the developer. That money never came to the City of Plattsburgh; it’s not owned by the City of Plattsburgh; it’s not held by the City of Plattsburgh. It is held by the state and the contract for development is directly between the developer and ESD themselves.”