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Gardiner’s Benton Corners targeted for new agribusiness hub

by Frances Marion Platt
November 30, 2022
in Business, Politics & Government
0
Benton Corners (Photo by Lauren Thomas)

The Town of Gardiner’s most notoriously accident-prone hamlet, the intersection known as Benton Corners, is being targeted for the creation of a new agribusiness hub, on a hitherto-undeveloped 4.78-acre lot across Route 44/55 from Lombardi’s Italian Restaurant and across Bruynswick Road from Base Camp. The New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) is expected to install a traffic light sometime in 2023 at the intersection, which has been the site of frequent automobile and motorcycle collisions over the years, occasionally fatal.

A company called Full Circle, LLC came before the Gardiner Planning Board at its November 15 meeting to present its site plan for a business complex that would include a 4,720-square-foot main building housing a service business, retail and a bakery, clustered with a separate 1,120-square-foot farm store, a 600-square-foot coffeehouse and a 600-square-foot greenhouse for growing microgreens, with a plaza in the middle. The site, located on the northeast corner of the intersection, would also become home to two small freestanding offices intended for wellness services, plus a separate bathroom building to serve them.

Adjacent to Bruynswick Road would be an 820-square-foot storage structure for equipment used by owner Mike Benevento’s other business, Hudson Valley Trailworks. The latter building, and especially the extra exit meant to serve it, were the most contentious features to catch the Planning Board’s collective eyes at the introductory meeting. The main entrance/exit is also positioned on Bruynswick, slightly closer to the dicey intersection. “Do you even need that second driveway?” queried Board member Marc Moran.

 “It’s easier if you have a tractor/trailer,” Benevento explained, noting that the garage was intended to house trailbuilding machinery when not in use. “Bike trails are our passion. We built some down by the Transfer Station and hope to have some here as well.”

The plaza in the center of the main group of buildings would have “seating areas in the shade,” dictating the layout of the smaller structures at a diagonal orientation to 44/55 instead of forming a lateral wall facing the busy road. The greenhouse in particular would need to be oriented south/southwest for optimal solar gain, Benevento noted.

The central plaza would be “largely open space, but we hope to offer some programming,” he added. “Our aim is to create a spot where we can hang out and have good fun. We’re looking to create a community space.”

While the Board did not seem overtly hostile to the proposal, and Moran said, “I like the design,” chair Paul Colucci warned, “The DOT is going to have a problem with the driveways.” Board member Josh Verleun urged Benevento to “consider a traffic study.”

The Planning Board ultimately agreed to undertake a coordinated State Environmental Quality Review of the site plan and voted to declare itself lead agency. A public hearing on the project will be scheduled at a later date. Plans for the Full Circle project can be perused via the Dropbox link at www.townofgardiner.org/planning-board-agenda.

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Frances Marion Platt

Frances Marion Platt has been a feature writer (and copyeditor) for Ulster Publishing since 1994, under both her own name and the nom de plume Zhemyna Jurate. Her reporting beats include Gardiner and Rosendale, the arts and a bit of local history. In 2011 she took up Syd M’s mantle as film reviewer for Alm@nac Weekly, and she hopes to return to doing more of that as HV1 recovers from the shock of COVID-19. A Queens native, Platt moved to New Paltz in 1971 to earn a BA in English and minor in Linguistics at SUNY. Her first writing/editing gig was with the Ulster County Artist magazine. In the 1980s she was assistant editor of The Independent Film and Video Monthly for five years, attended Heartwood Owner/Builder School, designed and built a timberframe house in Gardiner. Her son Evan Pallor was born in 1995. Alternating with her journalism career, she spent many years doing development work – mainly grantwriting – for a variety of not-for-profit organizations, including six years at Scenic Hudson. She currently lives in Kingston.

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