Ulster town supervisor James Quigley said Monday afternoon that he was waiting for a call from National Resources management. Right now, he said, there were two applications on the iPark 87 table from National Resources, a permit for the office space for the county government departments and the blueprints for the first 120 of the 880 workforce housing units the late company head Joe Cotter wanted to build on the open southern side of the campus.
The sudden death October 26 of Cotter, president of Connecticut-based National Resources, owner of iPark 87 and president of the most prominent private-sector development firm working in Ulster County, has increased the air of uncertainty surrounding economic development in Ulster County. The passing of so innovative and influential a figure as Cotter, whose commitment to revitalizing the site of the former Kingston IBM plant was unquestioned, was described locally as a stunning blow.
“Joe was more than a developer,” wrote county legislative chair Peter Criswell. “He was an innovator who breathed new life into spaces others had given up on. His commitment to revitalizing the former IBM campus is a testament to his groundbreaking approach to economic growth and community-building, paving the way for opportunity and prosperity in our community.”
Even with Cotter’s dynamic approach, vast network of contacts and the deep pockets that decades of successes had earned him, the path to economic revitalization at iPark 87 has been a rocky one. By the time National Resources agreed in late 2021 to buy the 258-acre ex-IBM property from Alan Ginsberg for $12 million and remove the piles of asbestos-contaminated rubble from the site, the pandemic had crippled the economy.
The post-pandemic picture at iPark 87 has evolved only gradually. A combination of high interest rates, increasing construction costs, and a shift to remote work have dampened the demand for both office and manufacturing space.
Archtop Fiber became the first significant tenant in late 2022. There was great optimism about the much-touted arrival in Kingston of Canadian battery maker Zinc 8, but that firm collapsed in a competitive marketplace in late 2022.
In May of this year, Ulster BOCES signed a lease to relocate an expanded career pathways academy to 105,000 square feet of iPark 87. BOCES will be joined in that space by education and training components at SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Ulster to create what has been termed a Workforce Innovation Center. Ulster County government leased another 40,000 square feet there to house its own departments of economic development and tourism and offices of employment and training.
Despite hopeful statements by Cotter and others, hints of the arrival of new businesses was imminent have not yet materialized.
The ability to work with community leaders to create new initiatives has always been one of Cotter’s strengths. Though he certainly had a keen eye for making a buck, he had more foresight than the kind of developer who wants everything his way because of the jobs and tax dollars he can bring.
The beginning of the school year this September marked the opening in Yonkers of a 500-student trade school for the film and television industries at a National Resources site.
“With a project of this scale we really thought we needed to do more than just the usual efforts, so we strategized and came up with something that we think has real social impact,” said Cotter about the project. His firm’s acquisition of a 28-acre former orphanage in southwest Yonkers included a school in good condition. “We asked, ‘Why doesn’t Yonkers get its own version of Fame and we’ll convert it to a high school for performing arts?’”
Ulster town supervisor Quigley and Cotter had disagreed about the massive housing element planned at that location on the iPark 87 campus. Quigley was concerned that the location was the largest vacant one in the town zoned for industrial development. He cautioned about the difficulties presented by a project with so many different constituencies ranging from governments to financial institutions to tenants.
Cotter, whose company has made housing an important element at many of its mixed-use sites, recognized the intensity of the housing shortage in Ulster County. He wanted to build 880 workforce housing units on the southern side of the campus.
“He was a true visionary who saw the potential in the long-abandoned IBM complex and was committed to transforming the property into an economic hub for the county,” county executive Jennifer Metzger said in a press release after hearing of Cotter’s passing last Friday. “We will continue to carry that vision forward.”
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