Harriman Site Still a Hard Sell
By Chris Churchill, Business Writer
First published: Sunday, June 8, 2008
At lunchtime on a warm day, the State Office Campus in uptown Albany is a pleasant place. Some workers sit in brown-bagging groups, eating and chit-chatting under trees. Others walk or jog in the campus' park-like setting.
But almost since the completion of the W. Averell Harriman State Office Campus in the early 1960s -- and especially in the last decade -- state and city officials have been dissatisfied with the site, describing it as a dead spot on the landscape and a vestige of outdated urban planning theories.
They want to remake the 330-acre campus.
On occasion, they even call it one of Northeast's great urban development opportunities and one of the best chances to rejuvenate Albany. Rarely, after all, do older cities have such a large canvas on which to paint.
In 1998, the state Office of General Services suggested selling the campus and moving state workers downtown. In 2003, Gov. George Pataki proposed something far more dramatic: a $300 million plan to move workers, demolish most of the campus' aged buildings and convert the site into a "high-tech hub of America."
Pataki's goals led to a detailed master plan, released in 2006 and crafted with input from residents of surrounding homes. It would have turned the 330-acre campus into a mixed-used, truly urban neighborhood of high-tech companies, small stores and restaurants and residences.
Included were grand boulevards, a large park not unlike Albany's Washington Park, and direct connections to the thousands of students and workers at the nearby University at Albany.
That plan, though, has been shelved.
The change came after former Gov. Eliot Spitzer put his own stamp on Harriman plans in December, deciding state workers and the buildings that house them should stay. Standing on campus, he said, "There is an infrastructure here worth maintaining."
Spitzer's resignation did nothing to change the plan.
Now, state officials are asking three development teams, selected in April, to consider developing pieces of the campus. And critics, including Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, say the focus on creating a true neighborhood has disappeared.
"We've changed directions too many times," Jennings said. "I'm not sure (the original plan) was the salvation of everything, but at least it gave a direction of where we wanted to go."
There are questions over whether Harriman's redevelopment is on the right track and whether Spitzer's plan represents the highest and best use for the land considered such a vital opportunity.
"The original proposal, I thought, was really a good one," said Paul Bray, an Albany attorney and adjunct professor of planning at the University at Albany. "Now it seems to be the same old, same old."
Harriman is like a poodle skirt, bobby socks or hair greased into a ducktail. It represents the fashions of the 1950s.
Then planners liked buildings separated by large expanses of grass. In an age when the automobile ruled, they liked wide roads and big parking lots.
Harriman has those things. It is even circled by a six-lane roadway as wide as the Northway.
"It's an extreme example of 1950s-era planning for the motor age," said Ray Bromley, a University at Albany professor of planning and geography.
Built on land one neighbor remembers as "nothing but sand," the campus was the brainchild of Gov. Thomas Dewey, a Republican who left office in 1954. At the time, downtown Albany was a bustling place where office space was in high demand. Moving state workers to a separate campus was seen as a way to alleviate the crowding.
Bromley said the campus also served Dewey's political purposes. The governor considered both the Capitol and the city of Albany corrupt, and thought it wise to isolate state workers from both.
Dewey envisioned at least 25,000 workers at Harriman, but subsequent governors, even W. Averell Harriman, the Democrat for whom the campus is named, weren't as committed to the project.
Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, of course, in the early 1960s launched an office campus project of his own: Empire State Plaza in downtown Albany.
"He froze Harriman construction," Bromley said. "Instead of going to 25,000 (workers), it topped out at 11,000."
As a result, the campus, especially on cold days, can seem a lonely place. And its network of roadways, designed for far more traffic, can seem ludicrous.
Bromley notes that if you combine the roadways forming the eastern boundary of the campus -- the Harriman ring roads, Route 85 and Brevator Street -- there are 14 lanes of traffic running in parallel.
Said Dominick Ranieri, an architect and planner in Guilderland: "It's completely designed for the car experience. It's not designed for the human experience."
The master plan released in 2006 aimed to change that. It eliminated the ring roads and laced the campus with a grid of new streets. It emphasized walkability and connections to surrounding neighborhoods.
The plan was highly ambitious. It envisioned 3.6 million square feet of office, retail, hotel and residential space. (Colonie Center, by contrast, has about 1.3 million square feet of space.) The development, though, was to be built slowly, over as many as 30 years.
Still, despite the slow pace, the plan raised concerns for neighbors who have grown used to a quiet Harriman. But F. Michael Tucker, then the head of the Harriman Research and Technology Development Corp., the group created to oversee campus development, said he and Jennings worked to reduce worries.
The pair hosted at least three public meetings, said Tucker, now head of the Center for Economic Growth in Albany, and the plan was revised to address some neighbor concerns. An early draft, for example, showed a bandstand at the center of the campus, but that was removed after some neighbors feared it might host loud concerts.
"It was consensus building," Tucker said. "It was a very productive process."
In 2006, when Pataki was still in office, the state asked builders to bid on developing a corner of the site.
In April 2007, though, officials under the Spitzer administration withdrew the request for proposals, citing a lack of interest and imagination. Just three development teams, including local firms Columbia Development Cos. in Albany and The Howard Group in Colonie, had submitted bids.
Some believe timing limited the response.
"I don't think the plan itself failed," said Jim Lyons, president of the Melrose Neighborhood Association, representing an area just west of the campus. "Not many developers are going to put in proposals six months before the change of an administration."
Last month, officials sent out a new request for proposals to three development teams they had selected. Columbia Development and Howard Group each again received a copy, as did The Galesi Group in Rotterdam.
The RFP, which makes no mention of the 2006 master plan, asks developers to consider building on three separate parcels. The center of the campus, home now to 7,500 employees, is not up for development. The ring roads remain in place.
"I'm disappointed in the new plan," Lyons said. "There has not been input at all from any of the neighborhoods."
Not everything has changed. The new RFP still asks developers to focus on attracting high-tech companies while building mixed-use developments of housing, offices and residences.
Michael Phillips, president of the Harriman Research and Technology Development Corp., and John Egan, commissioner of the Office of General Services, said last week the piecemeal approach can work.
They noted that the campus in recent months has succeeded in attracting some private employers to underused state builings, and they said the campus needs to score just one development victory for others to follow.
But there have been questions over how construction can proceed without a master plan in place.
How can a developer, for example, build housing if he doesn't know what ultimately will be built on an adjacent parcel? How can separate developments by different builders be linked to create a cohesive whole?
"I don't want to see it piecemeal developed," Jennings said. "I don't think it's healthy to do it that way."
Jennings said the campus should be "completely vacated" and turned over to those who would build with input from the university and neighbors.
He points to the rapid pace of development across Washington Avenue from Harriman, where Columbia Development has quickly built the Patroon Creek Corporate Center and where A.G. Spanos Cos. is now erecting a large apartment complex.
"The campus is in the hands of a lot of agencies and bureaucrats," Jennings said. "It should be privatized."
Others, noting that the city's population has been declining for decades, say large portions of the campus should be used for residential development that could help bring the middle-class back to the city.
If Assemblyman Jack McEneny, D-Albany, had his druthers, he would turn Harriman over to the University at Albany. The school will need additional land to grow, he said, and could lease some of the land to private companies.
For now, though, everybody is waiting to see if the piecemeal approach brings a response from the developers now considering the RFPs.
The developers have until Aug. 11 to submit proposals.
State officials hope to approve a proposal by mid-October.
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories...sdate=6/8/2008
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