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Developer Martin Ginsburg Builds Nautical Heated Shelter For Haverstraw Commuter Ferry Terminal; Local Advocates Are Pushing For Longer Season for Weekend Ferry Trips Next Year
By Tina Traster
Tuesday’s unveiling of the Haverstraw Commuter Ferry Terminal building is another testament to Martin Ginsburg’s ongoing vision to re-imagine many elements along the Hudson River coastline that runs through the Village of Haverstraw.
Dignitaries including Mayor Michael Kohut of the Village of Haverstraw, County Executive Ed Day, and Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi joined developer Ginsburg in a ribbon cutting on a spectacularly warm day with winds floating off the Hudson River.
The 748 square-foot open-air heated shelter with benches evokes a traditional coastal scene with American flags flying atop the structure. The $650,000 structure was funded by Ginsburg Development Companies (GDC) as part of the developer’s recently completed Admirals Cove waterfront rental project. The luxury rental building at 4100 Admirals Cove at the southeastern point of a peninsula is just to the south of the New York Waterways Ferry, which connects the Village of Haverstraw with Ossining.
“We welcome this new shelter as a great amenity for our commuters and thank Ginsburg Development Companies for their continued work in Haverstraw,” said Rinaldi.
The terminal sits within the Haverstraw Waterfront Promenade Park, which was built in phases as part of a public-private partnership between GDC, the Village of Haverstraw, and New York State Parks.
Ginsburg partnered with Metro-North Railroad and NY Waterways in Sept. 2000 to launch the ferry, which has operated as a weekday commuter ferry connecting Rockland residents to the Hudson Line of Metro-North at Ossining Station.
Seasonal weekend service began on Memorial Day through Veteran’s Day – a successful gambit according to village advocates who are working on developing a symbiotic relationship with Ossining to promote tourism between the “sister” cities. Both the Village and Ossining are recent recipients of $10 million DRI grants.
Visitors arriving in Rockland were met by buses that stopped at various destinations in the county, including the Brick Museum and the hugely successful annual Food Crawl. Those passengers undocking in Westchester visited Ossining restaurants and its downtown.
Advocates are hoping to get a longer stretch of weekend service, with boats running between April and Christmas.
“The Village is excited for the completion of this magnificent transit hub on our waterfront,” said Kohut. “The building is beautiful, and it will well serve the needs of our commuters and visitors. GDC has again succeeded in making something potentially mundane into a spectacular piece of architecture.”
The Village of Haverstraw is at a turning point, and Ginsburg, who is a young 90, continues to push for waterfront development. He is working on bringing a waterfront restaurant to the jutting piece of land know as the point by 2025/2026. He told RCBJ he’s working on shoring up the site, which needs to be raised to 14 feet above sea level. The developer said he has a restaurant/event space operator in mind for the project, which will serve American food.
“I want this to be a place where people will want to have weddings.”
And if he continues to manifest his visions, the bride and groom may one day stay at a small inn Ginsburg hopes to build at the marina.
Like Ginsburg, Village officials and a handful of developers have visions for transforming both the waterfront and the village itself. Most notable is the proposed Chair Factory development, a mixed-use project that included a combination of market rate and affordable housing, as well as retail, commercial and a hotel for the vacant nine-acre Hudson River peninsula. The proposed project is seen as a much needed and long overdue catalyst for workforce housing and economic revival. The project calls for 450 housing units, 70 percent of which will be a combination of affordable and up to 40-year rent stabilized workforce housing.
In January, the Rockland County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) authorized a raft of benefits for the $340 million project, including $1.65 million exemption from mortgage tax recording, an $18.5 million exemption from sales tax, and the approval to participate in a PILOT program. In Rockland County, the developer must negotiate PILOTs with the individual taxing authorities — village, town, school district and county.
The project is sailing through its village approvals, but is stymied by Haverstraw Town Supervisor Howard Phillips, who’s repeatedly expressed opposition against granting the developer the PILOT the project needs. In contrast, Village, county, and school board officials are behind the project.
The village acquired the Chair Factory property in early 2008 in condemnation proceedings for $2.14 million. Ginsburg Development had been in negotiations with the village to acquire the property and develop condominiums, and a parking garage to serve the relocated Haverstraw to Ossining ferry, retail and other uses. However, when the recession hit later that year, Ginsburg ended property acquisition talks with the village.
Admirals Cove, the final phase of GDC’s 700-unit residential neighborhood along the Hudson River, has 245 market-rate rental apartments. Begun more than 20 years ago, Admirals Cove is GDC’s crowning achievement of the redevelopment of the Haverstraw waterfront on a site that was once a historic brick factory.
Photos by Magdalena Truchan
