A capacity crowd turned out Thursday for a community forum on the future of Albany’s Pine Hills neighborhood when the College of Saint Rose closes next year.
Mounting concerns about the closure led Common Council Members Owusu Anane of the 10th ward and Ginnie Farrell of the 13th to host the two-hour town hall at the Pine Hills Library.
Residents joined activists, elected officials, students and former students, sharing ideas for what comes next. Albany City Treasurer Darius Shahinfar kicked off the discussion, acknowledging that disposition of the property tops the list of harsh realities.
"There is a, about a $50 million mortgage essentially, on a portion of Saint Rose," Shahinfar said. "And just for people's information, the mortgage properties are mostly the academic buildings along Madison Avenue, also the gym, the computer lab and I think that that's it. The smaller buildings, the smaller offices and the ones that I think Saint Rose bought up and refurbished, those are not mortgaged essentially. So Saint Rose is free to some extent to do what they want to do with those. But that means that the bondholders have a[n]obligation to get as much money out of those properties as they can. And so they're the first line of problem solving here, I guess, might be the best way to say it. Because they have a mortgage on specific purposed institutional academic buildings that I think are gonna be very difficult for them to dispose of, if they don't do it as a whole unit."
Public comment that followed revealed residents’ biggest concern is indeed the fate of the more than 80 buildings the college owns there.
B.J. Costello founded the Pine Hills Neighborhood Association 50 years ago. "There are buildings at the bondholders control and there are buildings that Saint Rose controls," Costello said. "We have a real need social justice need in this city to have affordable housing. My suggestion would be where the city can take the Saint Rose properties that could be turned into housing, that the city would then control who buys them, what the terms were, what the loans were, etc., to encourage residents to come into the city and live here, and make their home here, and go to school here ,and shop here, and do everything else here. “
Residents united against the prospect that developers would swoop in and gobble up parts or all of the campus.
Andrew Powers owns a home on nearby State Street. "A lot of the stuff in this town is run by developers and they do not have our best interests at heart."
Jennifer Robilotto, a Pine Hills resident for two years, is dead-set against local development companies... "... they're going to come in here, built those ugly five over one developments and charge $2,000 for a tiny, little tiny even more," said Robilotto. "Yeah, you don't charge ridiculous amounts that are not worth the cost. That's, you know, I hope that there is a representative of Saint Rose here who can understand our concern with that. Obviously, we want development in this neighborhood. I don't think anyone is against that. But that's my biggest concern is that real estate groups will come in, buy up the whole neighborhood, price us all out of it with poor shoddy construction quality."
Saint Rose grad Eileen Criscione is a lifelong Albany resident. She said "It is not just Saint Rose we need to be concerned about, it is the blight around this whole area that is growing. And this is going to add to it."
Steven Smith worked for years as a dishwasher at the college. He's like to see the campus repurposed as a retirement village. "The Eddy has six campuses. Make this the seventh campus," Smith said.
Other attendees expressed reservations about Hope House or other support facilities acquiring college properties. Costello says that fear is unfounded. “I'm on the board at Hope House. I have been for some time. And when we had the Next Step, which is a residential facility for 20 women, they could not come into some of these neighborhoods, because it was, you know, NIMBY, let me just say those words. We were able to get a location. The only one in upstate New York, it's over right across from the Lincoln pharmacy. You'd never know it was there. There are 20 women in rehab there. They succeed. They go to apartments that we have for them, they get jobs, they get reunited with their kids, they change their lives,” Costello said.
Shahinfar says there's a lot of behind-the-scenes activity surrounding the closure. “The closing of Saint Rose is not just a problem for us in the neighborhood here. It's a strategic problem for New York state. Because, I don't know how many of my kids teachers went to Saint Rose. I don't know how many of the students here work at the schools all through the area, including all and for social workers as well. And all the good that they give. So I'm hopeful that the state will. and I think they do understand that, and we're working on. I also want to mention, don't think that conversations are not going on with the mayor, with the county executive, the state legislators and Saint Rose. They are meeting but Saint Rose is has a, let's say a ceiling of what it is that we can really be discussing right now with people. And that was part of the problem over the last two years as this whole problem was festering,” said Shahinfar.
At the end of the session, Anane declared the first of what he says will be "many more" public meetings a success. "This is what an engaged neighborhood looks like. And I'm optimistic about the future of the Pine Hills neighborhood,” Anane said.
