UALBANY eyes expansion into McKownville, neighbors wary

[MRSGDG]

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/UALBANY-eyes-expansion-into-McKownville-1453374.php

[Clickclack]

 

Rumor of possible athletic expansion? Anyone care to speculate what would go there if the land was acquired? It's obviously in the general vicinity of all of our other facilities.

[danefan]

I doubt any athletic facilities are in play. The school needs housing more than anything.

[Dane96]

Parking lot is my guess...parking for athletics.

 

The one athletics thing in play could possibly be a mixed use indoor rec center or a real indoor football facility. My guess is a rec center or parking.

[UAalum72]

Yes, the original Project 2010 had a student rec center (maybe with a real indoor track facility) that was located near Dutch Quad. And the story mentions President's housing - did they sell the place near Washington Park?

 

Seems expensive for parking used for only six football games per year, unless there's expansion of SEFCU Arena in the future, similar to Stony Brook's stalled renovation.

[Dane96]

Have to remember that the stadium will be used for more than football. High schools, lax, etc. If we get to 10,000 - 12,000 seats...which I think is a given within 5 years of groundbreaking, the stadium will be a great outdoor concert venue. Lot's of use for a lot there. Agreed expensive though. Many, many moons ago...Milt Richards moons ago, I was told that SEFCU could easily be expanded. We don't need it now as we all know.

 

Like everything with Albany, we will wait and see.

[danefan]

Any plans that involve impervious grounds will get major challenge from the zoning boards.

 

Rec field that doubles as tailgate parking sound good to me. Keep it for a few years and play it by ear for 5-10 years.

[UAalum72]

If event parking's what's needed, it'd be a lot cheaper and less objectionable to the neighborhood to run a shuttle service to the Harriman Campus lots, which are nearly unused nights and weekends. Probably no tailgating there, though.

[danefan]

More than anything, buying the land present options that the school does not have right now. Plus it breaks the ice into McKnownville, which as the article mentions, has never happened. Those neighborhoods along Western Ave are important to the future of the University. The Campus would be phenomenal it extended all the way down Western to Fuller. The only way that ever happen is if they chip away piece by piece. That's what St. Rose is doing in Pine Hills. Buying houses as they come on the market and not ruffling too many feathers with a large land grab.

 

I like the idea of moving the President up onto the main campus. The downtown building is nice, but I think it makes more sense to have the President near the vast majority of students.

[Dane96]

True on all accounts. Years ago, Columbia did the same type of land grab. Boston University has done the same in the 12 years I have lived here. It is a must for any University. All have met with great resistence, however in the end they have built strong town-gown relationships.

 

Residents of Albany need to wake-up and realize there is a reason Ann-Arbor, Gainsville, Austin, etc. are considered top places to live: the Universities that reside within their territory.

 

There is absolutely no reason why Albany cannot be Austin. In fact, with the location it could become that pretty quickly.

[Michigan_Dane]

UAlbany should buy every parcel available. There is no reason to be apologetic. The land is on the open market. UAlbany has every right to purchase it.

[Dane96]

Damn SoCal...are you sure you are not a secret lawyer or Wall Street trader?! I like it...I like it alot; straight-forward and too the point...

[danefan]

The problem is UA does not have every right to use it for any purpose it wishes after it purchases the land.

 

Better to make nice now and push the envelope later, IMO.

[Dane96]

DF, I agree with you in some respects. One thing that our former (and our incumbent) President was successful at was building strong relationships with our neighbors. So from the respect of making the land grab, I agree you make the grab and likely don't do anything with the land until you speak with the community.

 

Again, the perfect example is Columbia as they grabbed land and held onto it while they discussed the options with the community. You will never make everyone happy upon execution as there is rarely any chance that a University can fulfill all of their promises. With Columbia, they cleaned up the neighborhood (check), the revitalized the apartments/buildings they grabbed (check) however, they have still yet to provide the promised lower-income housing. They took quite a hit for that publicly...but from what I gather, that steam has dissapated and they got what they needed: land.

 

We are an extremely land-locked school with four major roads (or routes/highways) around us and we need to continue to do what it takes. As you and I both know...there is definitely a happy medium. For example, the school could spend the extra $$$ to re-locate environmental/neighborhood friendly services at the University (e.g. Alumni House, Facilities Management, etc) to the newly purchased property. They can use the vacated premises to build noise/congestion producing structures such as parking.

 

In that instance, everyone gets what they want. Now, if the State had half-a-brain they would just sell us large swaths of Harriman and be done with it. Forget the tax-roll losses...the amount of revenue generated by the University would likely double to about 2-2.5 billion if the school could grow to the size of a Stony Brook/Buffalo. From a long-term planning perspective...at some point those schools will be maxed out size-wise and the run-off will have to go to Albany and Binghamton, with Albany getting more because of the massive focus on research compared to Binghamton.

[UAalum72]

In that instance, everyone gets what they want. Now, if the State had half-a-brain they would just sell us large swaths of Harriman and be done with it. Forget the tax-roll losses...

No tax roll losses now, except any in-lieu-of-taxes payments the state may be making; just tax opportunity in that one fine day in the future when there's private development of the Harriman campus, assuming that's done without any tax abatements or other government inducements.