Rivers center debuts in 2006

Nearly $26 million 'in the bank' for building; Beacon, 2 satellite sites selected

By Dan Shapley
Poughkeepsie Journal

 

Lee Ferris/Journal Gov. George Pataki Monday announces that Dennings Point in Beacon will be the future home of the Rivers and Estuaries Center on the Hudson. Behind him is Rob Dyson, who said the Dyson Foundation has pledged $5 million toward development of the center.

The Rivers and Estuaries Center is coming to Beacon, and it's coming with nearly $26 million ''in the bank,'' Gov. George Pataki announced Monday from the Beacon shoreline where the research center's main campus will be built.

In addition to $5 million from the Dyson Foundation and $750,000 from the Dutchess County Legislature, Pataki announced the New York Power Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will contribute $10 million each.

Two satellite sites -- at Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, Rockland County, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy -- are already at work on a $1 million research project.

''I am going to be here when they cut the ribbon,'' Pataki said, with the mouth of Fishkill Creek and Storm King Mountain at his back.

3-year search

The decision, first reported in Saturday's Poughkeepsie Journal, marks the culmination of a three-year process to choose a home for the research center, which Pataki envisions as a worldwide hub for the study of rivers and estuaries like the Hudson River.

It has been praised as being a visionary development in the Hudson Valley's relationship with the river, as well as an economic and educational boon.

It will be a nonprofit organization, running on a combination of state, federal and private money. The state has already authorized spending $2.25 million on the project, and the federal government will kick in another $900,000.

The original strategic plan called for a four-year, $132 million construction phase, and a $63 million budget. As many as 500 people would be employed under the plan.

Those numbers are no longer valid, project spokesman John Cronin said. With the decision to create satellite sites, the strategic plan will have to be revised. The only new estimates publicized Monday were that construction on Dennings Point in Beacon could begin as early as 2004, and that it would take two years.

The shell of a former paper clip factory will be reclaimed, at least in part, for the research center.

''This will be a symbol of how we transformed what we lost in the 20th century to what we regained for the residents of the 21st century,'' Pataki said.

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