Advocates say a reimagined Harriman State Office Campus is still in the cards after money for the project was left out of the New York state budget passed late Thursday.
The measure would have required the Office of General Services to repurpose 7 acres for the new development, falling under the $1.7 billion dollar Wadsworth Public Health Laboratory project.
Senator Pat Fahy and Assemblymembers John McDonald and Gabriella Romero, all Democrats, support the idea to transform Harriman from what they label a 1960s "car culture" era parking lot-dominated area to a mixed-use, walkable, "transit-oriented development."
Fahy said "We should not be making a $1.7 billion investment in a lab to regain our world class status with those public health labs and not make sure that the investment has a ripple effect here into the Capital Region. So the piece that I'm troubled with is the fact that it's 27 acres, and not quite half of it will be another parking lot. The last thing we need up at Harriman campus is another parking lot.”
Fahy, representing the 46th district, says Harriman was built during the 1950s and 60s in a suburban, car-oriented style, with an outer ring road that cuts it off from surrounding neighborhoods. She says it’s an anachronism, and it makes sense to modernize the campus.
"And if you take it out even one part of those rings, just one section, you can free up over a dozen acres for again, retail, commercial, housing and more. I feel like the governor is ignoring her own executive order to use state lands to grow our housing base and grow our economy," said Fahy.
WAMC has requested comment from the governor’s office.
McDonald, who represents the 108th district, says redoing Wadsworth at Harriman is "still on," regardless of the new budget.
"Let's be very clear. That does not take away or hold up the project by any stretch of imagination. Wadsworth, the new Wadsworth at Harriman, is still moving forward. The intention was to really call to question about the call together, the opportunity, that we see a greater development opportunity, but that that's a battle for another day," said McDonald.
109th district Assemblymember Romero says she, McDonald and Fahy will continue the fight to move the Harriman campus "mixed use" proposal forward.
“We wanted to get money in the budget for a study on how exactly to do that. And that money, we didn't get that money in the budget. And definitely unfortunate, not only to get the money, but to get the Article 7 language, to actually have those seven acres be set aside. Either of those would have been nice. We didn't get that in the budget. But my actual approach, though, is that this is such a long term project, and we have many, many, many more years to advocate for this. And you know, I am in it for the long haul,” said Romero.
The Wadsworth Labs project is expected to be completed by 2030.
