Kingston developer woos museum

By Paul Kirby, Freeman staff Daily Freeman January 31, 2006

KINGSTON - A retired Brooklyn attorney who has purchased a significant amount of city waterfront land in the past year is negotiating to buy the Hudson River Maritime Museum property, officials said Monday.
Mayor James Sottile and Dr. John C. Weeks, a Kingston physician and president of the museum's board of directors, confirmed that Robert Iannucci has expressed interest in purchasing the museum property. Weeks said "preliminary negotiations" are ongoing.
"We are looking forward to getting (Iannucci's proposal) and we will look at it extremely carefully and then make an appropriate decision for whatever is best for our collection, and also what is best for the continued public access to the waterfront," Weeks said.
Weeks emphasized that the museum's priority is to "protect the collection" and maintain public access to the museum.
During a meeting with the Freeman editorial board Monday, Sottile said Iannucci was negotiating to purchase the museum property or become a partner with the museum in some way. Sottile said that if Iannucci can make a proposal that would bring more people to the museum and to the city's waterfront, he will support it.
"While the museum has been successful, with Mr. Iannucci's input and experience, it can only get better," Sottile said.
Iannucci characterized the plan as more of a "merger" that would combine the nearby former Cornell steamboat boiler building he purchased last year with the maritime museum property. Iannucci, a tugboat enthusiast, said his short-term plan is to move the museum collection into the Cornell building on East Strand and establish an "apprentice program" for young people, teaching them how to build and repair wooden boats.
His long-term plan, he said, is to demolish the museum building and establish a bigger center on the two properties.
"We see a role for a more larger and active museum in Kingston and that museum is going to be one of the kingpins of the waterfront development," said Iannucci. He said the new museum, under his plan, would be called the Kingston Maritime and Transport Museum.
Recently, city officials announced that Iannucci purchased the former Ulster Marine property at 440 Abeel St. after it fell into foreclosure.
His other acquisitions, which began last spring, include the landmark former William B. Fitch Bluestone Co. building at 532-574 Abeel St., which Iannucci plans to use as a part-time residence; the former L&M junkyard; Island Dock; and the Cornell building, all of which are on the Rondout Creek. He also bought land near the mouth of the creek, not far from the Rondout Lighthouse.
No formal plans for any of the properties have been submitted to City Hall. During a community meeting last July, representative of Iannucci said he was considering building a mix of townhouses and commercial space on Island Dock, a manmade island on the Rondout Creek.
In other matters during the editorial board meeting, Sottile touched on issues concerning other waterfront developments, including the proposed large-scale housing and commercial project known as The Landing at Kingston and Ulster.
The mayor, said that although the tax impact of the plan has not been determined by city experts reviewing financial information supplied by the developer, he remains convinced that the city will be better off with the development.
"I am a firm believer that the more people you have contributing to the (municipal) pie, you are going to be that much stronger," Sottile said.
Sottile pointed out that The Landing's developers, in addition to hiring their own consultants, are paying for consultants the city has selected to review the project's draft environmental impact statement.
John Lyons, a consulting attorney to the city, said in the final analysis, the Planning Board, which acts independently of the Mayor's Office, will ultimately decide on the proposal. He said the board's decision-making process will be held up to scrutiny if the project is taken into court.
Planning Board members are appointed by the mayor

.©Daily Freeman 2006

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