By Steve Densmore

Developer Jon Behrends this week unveiled a $3 million plan to rehabilitate seven connected and mostly vacant Main Street buildings, a project that city officials are hailing as a key redevelopment effort that would tie in with other development plans to transform the long-blighted commercial corridor.

Behrends said he has secured nine contiguous properties—including 382 through 394 Main St., a vacant lot at 7-14 S. Hamilton St., and 105 Canon St.—which will form the basis of a new mixed use redevelopment proposal that he hopes to present to city planners next month. Key to the project is a plan to build 30 new apartments in the currently unused upper floors of the buildings. Ground floors would contain commercial tenants, he said.

"This is part of the whole Main Street revitalization vision where we're trying to bring residential tenants back to Main Street, so that Main Street isn't just a 9-to-5 proposition anymore," he said, pointing out that a residential component to downtown will help attract more shops and other commercial tenants to service renters living there. "This in turn will encourage businesses to stay open past 5 o'clock and it will make Main Street vibrant once again."

Behrends has completed several rehabilitation projects in the city in recent years, most notably his gut rehab of three connected buildings at 202-206 Main Street. The developer, who lives in Poughkeepsie, said that project demonstrated to him the growing demand for well built, upper floor, market rent apartments. "Urban flight is over," he said. "There is a movement back into cities across the U.S....Young professionals don't necessarily want to be saddled with a house."

An important element in Behrends' plan is his pending acquisition of two blighted buildings at 384 and 386-88 Main St. from the city. Much as he did with 202-206 Main, Behrends is acquiring the broken down structures for $500 each and the commitment to rehabilitate them. "The element that has pulled this project together was the acquisition of the two buildings (three addresses) from the City of Poughkeepsie. Without the help of Mayor Colette Lafuente and Development Director Ed Murphy, this project would have died an early death. This project is still in the developmental phase, and we still have a few bridges to cross before the whole picture will come into focus," he stated.

For his part, Murphy praised the plan, particularly because it will complement another proposed mixed-use development planned for the 400 Block of Main Street. The city recently backed a plan by Pennrose Properties and Duvernay & Brooks to build a mixed use development featuring retail space and up to 56 apartments on city-owned property along the north side of the 400 Block. "Between them, it's a substantial number of new dwelling units in the neighborhood," Murphy said Wednesday, also praising the initial designs for Behrends' project, which call for a consolidated approach between the several buildings. "It's a wonderful concept," he said. "I think there's a lot of good things going on...all centered on Poughkeepsie."

Mayor Lafuente said the project's housing element, in particular, will help turn around an important stretch of Main Street. "That's an area that's in bad shape right now. (Behrends) will turn that whole corner around...He does wonderful work," she said. "Those apartments will rent and we will get more people living downtown and that will encourage the growth of good businesses."

Behrends and other downtown re-developers, such as Eitan Dor and Michael Quinones, have been snapping up vacant and under-utilized properties along the Main Street corridor at a furious pace in the last year. Behrends says the estimated $3 million project—his biggest local development to date—will only enhance other properties in the vicinity that are themselves being rehabilitated. "It's reaching critical mass quickly. I think that within one-and-a-half to two years Poughkeepsie will explode," he said.