Planners involved with the Hudson Valley Welcome Center project hope that a new wine and culinary center will become the commercial centerpiece of the tourist-based destination. Elizabeth Waldstein-Hart, project coordinator for the proposed project, gave an update on the plan’s progression at a June 16 Hyde Park Town Board workshop.
Hart explained that she has drafted a Request for Interest (RFI) document that, once approved, will be sent to businesses and entrepreneurs who may be interested in developing a tourist-based business on the Welcome Center site. In the meantime, Hart and members of the Hyde Park Partnership are meeting this week with members of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, who are seeking a site to build a Hudson River Valley Wine and Culinary Center. The welcome center parcel, said Hart, is one of three area locations that are under consideration by the foundation.
Agencies involved in the Hyde Park Partnership include the Town of Hyde Park, Scenic Hudson, Inc., the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area and the National Park Service. The Welcome Center is slated to be built on a 29-acre parcel on Route 9 at the Hyde Park Drive-In location currently owned by Scenic Hudson. The land is part of two parcels that Scenic Hudson purchased to protect from conversion into a shopping mall. In 2000, Scenic Hudson bought the 29-acre parcel, followed by a 2004 purchase of 334 acres between Franklin Roosevelt’s home and Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val-Kill. Earlier this year, Scenic Hudson transferred the larger parcel of land to the National Park Service, which in the process of restoring an historic carriage trail running through the property for public use.
The Hudson Valley Welcome Center proposed for the 29 acres site is expected to include a visitor’s center, transportation hub and tourist-based commercial entity. The New York Wine and Grape foundation received an Empire State Development grant of $44,500 to conduct a professional planning study to explore the creation of the Hudson River Valley Wine & Culinary Center. The center would serve to advance education, training, economic development and agri-tourism related to the unique foods, wines, and agricultural potential of the Hudson Valley. A similar center opened in mid-June in Canandaigua in the Finger Lakes region.
Scenic Hudson has invested $7 million and 15 years working in Hyde Park on various projects. In 2004 it purchased 334 acres between Franklin Roosevelt’s home and Eleanor’s Val-Kill, protecting it from conversion into a shopping mall. Earlier this year, it transferred the land to the National Park Service, which plans to restore an old farm road running through the property for public use. At the time of the transfer, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne called this “the most important expansion of the FDR National Historic Site that will ever happen.”