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A Roundup of Recent Ulster County Business-Related News, Views, and More

August 27th, 2025

Pictured: Woodstock Planning Board meeting discussing Zena Homes on August 21st

First, we would like to take a moment to congratulate Wildflower Farms, in Gardiner for being named the No. 1 hotel in New York state in Travel +Leisure's 2025 World's Best Awards!

We also would like to thank the Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce for its incredible efforts in helping local restaurants and small businesses during COVID with its social media work. After a great 5 year run, they have sunset its Ulster Chamber Small Businesses United and Ulster Chamber Eateries United social media pages. Thank you for providing many with a light during a dark time.

Be sure to visit the Chamber-hosted Buy Local Expo on Wednesday, Sept 10th at the Diamond Mills from 12-4pm. Ulster Strong will be there! Stop by and visit us!

This newsletter includes the following:

Opinion: Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in Ulster

Pattern for Progress' Latest Housing Report:Out of Reach 2025

Kingston Reveals New Rentals Vacancy Study

She’s Got the Look - Home and set design star Cathy Hobbs drops her eco-friendly anchor in Ulster County

RCAL’s New Employment Center: Building Pathways to Work

DATA BITES

QUICK BUSINESS NEWS UPDATES

Midtown Kingston is on the rise, with residential, commercial and community developments

Pet crematorium plan near Highland Elementary nixed

New York State has set an ambitious timeline to achieve a net-zero carbon goal in the coming years, which requires implementing Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) across the state. This transition puts significant pressure on electric companies to upgrade their grid systems and demands active participation from all communities.

To successfully advance the deployment of a smart grid that incorporates renewable energy and reduces reliance on fossil fuels, careful selection of battery sites are critical decisions. Today, New York has some of the nation's strictest environmental review standards and procedures, with regulations governing BESS having improved significantly since previous incidents involving fires. We urge state and county governments, as well as power companies, to take a proactive approach in identifying suitable locations for these facilities. We believe local municipalities should advocate for high safety standards. When these standards are met, residents and businesses can be confident that their safety is a top priority. This strategy is vital for ensuring safety as well as community support. 

Our local community needs to participate in this move toward carbon neutrality. A site in the Town of Ulster, specifically at the former Coleman High School, is under consideration for BESS installation. Ulster Strong is fully dedicated to supporting the deployment of renewable energy, smart grid systems, and battery sites, provided they undergo rigorous SEQR (State Environmental Quality Review) and safety assessments. We are proud to align with our county executive on these issues, reflecting our unity and shared goals for a sustainable energy future.

This year's data confirm what many in our region already know all too well: The cost of housing in the Hudson Valley continues to rise faster than wages for renters and buyers. Over the 5-year period from 2020 through 2025, the average rent gap grew steadily in nearly every county, with Ulster increasing by $388 (59%), Westchester by $454 (47%), and Columbia by $222 (54%). Even over the past year alone, counties like Sullivan and Westchester saw sharp year-over-year jumps of $141 (48%) and $336 (31%), respectively. For the first time this year, two working adults sharing the cost of rent in Westchester cannot afford a 2-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30% of their incomes on housing costs.

These numbers highlight the immediate and growing strain felt by renters, as housing costs continue to outpace income year after year. As a result, working tenants are left with less money to cover basic necessities—like food, transportation, and the cost of raising a family.

Housing policy typically uses Area Median Income (AMI) as a threshold for affordability, which accounts for both renter and homeowner incomes. Because owners tend to earn significantly more than renters, the resulting AMI skews higher than what typical tenants earn. Many affordable housing programs target units at 80% AMI, yet our work shows that the majority of working renters across the region fall below 50% AMI. This mismatch means that many "affordable" units remain out of reach for people who need them most, and the standard metrics used to design housing policy often do not work as intended.

Given the high cost of new construction, many regional stakeholders worry that stricter affordability mandates could unintentionally stifle development. Tackling this crisis demands a broader toolkit—one that mixes traditional interventions with new, bold, flexible solutions. The Hudson Valley must build more housing of every type, preserve existing affordable homes, support cooperative ownership and community land trusts, enable the construction of smaller homes on smaller lots, expand zoning to accommodate mobile and tiny home communities, require landlords to accept housing vouchers, and redefine affordability benchmarks based on actual renter incomes—not medians skewed by high-earning homeowners.

The City of Kingston released the results of its vacancy study on July 13^th, 2025 and in its press release on that date, the City states, “The 2025 survey found that the net vacancy rate for sampled ETPA properties is 7.04%, exceeding the 5% threshold for declaring a housing emergency.”

The study was conducted in May, with survey requests sent out on May 1^st with responses due back on or before May 15^th requesting the vacancies existing on March 27^th, 2025. The survey additionally required the submission of the properties’ rent rolls for the proceeding 12 months.

After a three-month delay, Bartek Starodoj, Kingston’s Housing Director, formally presented the survey results to the Common Council Laws & Rules Committee on August 20^th. Members of the public were in attendance including eleven tenant advocates and eight property owners.

Mr. Starodoj walked the Council member through the methodology and various parts of the study and reported a 100% response rate and said he had been assisted throughout the process by the City’s Corporation Counsel department.

In the questioning by the Council members that followed the presentation it was clear that the questions were intended to try to undermine the City’s own study. Starodoj was questioned about the issue of “warehousing” whereby owners would have purposely held units off the market in order to affect the vacancy rate. This is a theme being pushed by the tenant advocate group, For the Many. Mr. Starodoj stated in response that warehousing would have been apparent in the rent roll data, and that in his examination of the rent rolls there was no evidence of warehousing.

The Laws & Rules Committee decided to hear from tenants in an apparent attempt to find some evidence that would allow them to invalidate their own study and to hold a public hearing first from tenants and a second hearing at which they would interrogate owners.

It would not be the first time that a municipality refused to accept a survey result. In 1993, the courts ordered the Village of Roslyn to end their rent emergency, the village board had refused to act after the vacancy survey exceeded the 5% threshold.

One must consider the context of the reported 7.04% vacancy rate in light of survey results elsewhere in the Hudson Valley. In the City of Albany, named by the Wall Street Journal last week as the fourth fastest growing city in America, their vacancy survey results reported a 8.3% vacancy rate; studies in Nyack, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie and New Paltz reported 7.7%,5.6%, 6.075% and 5.3% respectively.

It is illustrative to point out that the US Census Bureau found that the highest impact to COVID era occupancy was in New Paltz of all of Ulster County’s cities, towns and villages.  Kingston’s previous survey results reported a 6.7% vacancy rate in 2020 and 1.57% in 2022, clearly the 1.57% result is a statistical outlier, and the current 7.04% result is vindication of the Kingston’s owners’ claims that the 2022 result was inaccurate.

Much has change in the Hudson Valley rental market of late; many folks who were previously able to work for New York City companies remotely are now faced with mandatory “Return to Office” mandates requiring attendance in office 5 days a week making Kingston residency impractical and many have moved back to be in or closer to NYC.

Also, strict Short-Term Rental (STR) regulations have removed apartments from the STR market and made them available to long term tenants.

Both of these factors have increased the supply of apartments, and as a result owners have had to keep apartments on the market longer in order to rent, while keeping rents static, competing for tenants on amenities, price and location all of which have had the impact of pushing up the vacancy rate.

Cathy Hobbs is design royalty: a TV personality, five-time Emmy winner, an HGTV Design Star finalist, and a nationally syndicated design columnist. And now she’s headquartered in Highland.

Highland Passive House is an impressive new warehouse, showroom, and design center built to the lofty passive house “plus” standard. Certified at the end of May, the facility features on-site solar and EV infrastructure, designed to operate net-zero and carbon-neutral. The four-acre site serves as Hobbs’ upstate headquarters, anchoring a massive operation to outfit luxury homes and rentals (as well as TV and movie sets) with jaw-dropping furnishings and decor.

Highland Passive House is a home-staging and design hub representing over 200 lines. The building contains the Hudson Valley’s largest furniture rental inventory, enough to stage roughly 85 homes from NYC to the Hudson Valley, backed by receiving, inspection, storage, delivery, and installation services. 

Hobbs’ path to Highland started long before the Passive House. “I’ve owned an interior design firm that specializes in real estate staging and styling since 2004. I opened my business during a 20-year career as a television news reporter—mostly in New York at WPIX. I always wanted a plan B and had an interest in design, so I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology in the morning and covered the news at night. I gravitated toward home staging rather than traditional design.” 

Her Hudson Valley story is personal as well as professional. “In 2009 we purchased a little cottage in Saugerties. It was 800 square feet—they didn’t even lock it—and we’d come up on weekends. We had our daughter in 2010, and two years later we decided to raise her in the Hudson Valley. I’ve been a full-time resident since 2012, which is 13 years.”

The site that would become Highland Passive House came next. “I had always wanted a headquarters for my business, and about seven years ago I decided to move my business to the Hudson Valley. We were in a temporary location, and I’d put an offer on a building that didn’t work out. Almost immediately I found a beautiful parcel of land in Highland.”

The sustainability mission crystallized quickly. “I had the land for about seven or eight months with no plans—no architectural drawings, nothing—just a piece of land where I could build a warehouse and office. Then I heard about passive house construction and it caught my interest. I’d read about a warehouse in Idaho in an architectural magazine and reached out to an architect I knew who specialized in passive, and he put me in touch with a company called Ecocor in Maine that makes prefabricated passive panels. He called the owner, Chris Corson, who said he had already built all the panels for a passive warehouse; they were sitting in a hangar in Maine, but he’d decided to go in a different direction. I said, ‘That’s my building—tell him I’m flying to Maine.’ I learned there was one flight out of Stewart Airport to Maine, got on it, and he agreed to sell me the panels.”

Execution required a specialized bench. “At that point we had the pieces of the puzzle—almost like Lego—to erect the building, because we had the walls. We started bidding it out and needed to assemble an all-star team, because passive construction is very complicated. We interviewed a number of companies and settled on R.L. Baxter. We spent about a year getting the plans together, and then COVID hit. We were ready to go, and everything came to a halt.”

Local support helped restart momentum. “We at least had the land, the building, and our contractor lined up. When the dust settled, we went to work. We had a lot of community support. Lisa Berger—now the head of tourism, and formerly head of economic development for the county—was the first person to take a meeting with me and she opened so many doors. We ended up getting an Ulster County PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes). We employ locally. Our warehouse and logistics staff are local: one lives in Highland, another in Poughkeepsie. They work out of the Highland Passive House and handle city and local installations. We also employ local designers.”

What end-users will notice is comfort and infrastructure. “There are things you see and things you don’t. From the outside, you see our EV stations. Inside, you experience a constant-temperature, fresh-air environment. What you don’t see is that half of the entire roof is covered in solar panels. We’re as energy-efficient as we can get. As a business, Highland Passive House is a home-staging and design center—I didn’t want to just open an office.”

Hobbs frames the venture as a response to shifting local demand. “I wanted to fill what I think is a big void in Ulster County. When I moved here in 2012, the Hudson Valley Mall was a hub. Macy’s, JCPenney, Sears. Outside the mall along the avenue you had Pier 1, Kohl’s, Bed Bath & Beyond. All of those are gone.” She adds: “What has changed is increased migration from the city. People are looking for home décor and design services. Many stayed after COVID. We feel we’re offering a service with strong appeal to the area.”

“We want to be the center of design in the Hudson Valley. We plan to host lectures and events for the design community along with workshops and boot camps. We’re just getting started; our official opening was May 31st, and we’re looking forward to great things.”

Hobbs’ brand equity is national, which she argues matters for local real estate. “We’ve been in business for 21 years—since 2004—so none of this happened overnight. We’re among the top five staging companies in Manhattan, one of the leading in the state, and one of the top 10 staging companies in the country. I’m regarded as a national expert and speak at national conferences. The leading trade organization is the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA), where I’m a regular speaker. This year we won the top honor for Best Short-Term Rental Design in the United States, and I’m consistently ranked among the Top 100 Most Influential People in Staging. I’ve also been nominated for 19 Emmy Awards.” 

For Hobbs, all the signs point to Ulster County being the perfect place to be located. “When Sotheby’s, Serhant, and Compass open in an area, they’ve done real research on the demographics. They didn’t come here overnight. We’re here just as the Hudson Valley is being discovered by Manhattan and national brokerages.”

Her operating stance is growth-minded but pragmatic. “How do I balance it? Three to four hours of sleep. There’s a joke when people start working for me that someone pulls them aside and says, ‘She doesn’t sleep.’ I don’t sleep much, but I have a great team, and we’re always looking for talent, ideally right here in the Hudson Valley.” 

Headwinds exist, largely outside local control. “Our challenges aren’t Hudson Valley-based; they’re what any business faces. Given the political landscape, we’re subject to tariffs that impact us because most wholesale furniture in this country is sourced from China and Vietnam. We’re trying to maintain pricing without passing costs on to the consumer.” To keep evolving, Hobbs points to recent executive education. “I’m always reinventing and staying current—a lifelong learner. I’m proud to say I graduated yesterday from Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses program. They choose about a hundred businesses a year in Manhattan; we were selected for a four-month program. It’s a big feather in our cap with resources and mentorship.”

Earlier this summer, the Resource Center for Accessible Living (RCAL) opened its brand-new Employment Center in Kingston—and in just over two months, the results have been inspiring. The Center is already helping people with disabilities across Ulster County prepare for and succeed in meaningful employment.

RCAL Employment Specialists have been hard at work with clients in the new space, offering job readiness training, resume support, skills development, and one-on-one coaching. “This Center is more than just a new program—it’s a place where people can explore their strengths, build confidence, and take steps toward independence,” said Leah Gherardi, RCAL’s Director of Vocational & OPWDD Services. “We’ve already seen participants move forward in ways that are opening doors to new opportunities.”

Funded through the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) and ACCES-VR, RCAL’s vocational programs include Pathway to Employment, the Employee Training Program (ETP), pre-vocational services, supported employment, and job coaching. These services are designed to meet people where they are—whether someone is preparing for their first job or looking to advance in a career.

RCAL’s CEO, Anthony Mignone, noted that the Employment Center was years in the making and only possible thanks to community support. “We are especially grateful to Cross Point Fellowship Church, Ulster Savings Bank, and the Ulster County Italian American Foundation,” he said. “Their generosity helped transform our vision into a place of opportunity.”

The early success of the Center highlights a truth RCAL has long championed: people with disabilities are not only ready to work, but they bring dedication and reliability that strengthen the entire workforce. By partnering with local businesses, RCAL hopes to keep building bridges between talented job seekers and employers eager to diversify their teams.

As the Center grows, RCAL is excited to welcome more individuals and families into its vocational programs. Each success story—whether it’s a first interview, a new skill mastered, or a job offer accepted—underscores the power of inclusion and the dignity of work.

Hudson Valley Unemployment

NY State's Projected Budget Gaps Grow to $14.6 Billion

(Source: New York State Division of the Budget, FY 2026 Enacted Budget Financial Plan (June 2025).

Kingston microbrewery shares expansion details

(HV1)

Kingston Standard Brewing Company (KSBC), popular for its easy-drinking microwbrews and savory pizzas served up inside and outside of an old auto garage at 22 Jansen Ave., recently shared details of their major expansion plan.

The business received a $550,000 grant in August 2024 from New York State’s Restore NY program to grow its operations, building a state-of-the-art, zero fossil fuel facility that uses electric steam, CO₂ recapture, and solar energy to power operations.

Kingston Standard’s modest taproom will become a full-service restaurant and bar called The Kingston Standard Public House. The brewery will be relocated to an upgraded building at 2 Jansen Ave., next door to Village Grocery.

KSBC was founded in 2019 and has gone on to win several craft beer awards. Their website chronicles building renovations and upgrades that are ongoing.

Mixed-use project eyed for 9W

(Southern Ulster Times)

The Lloyd Planning Board held a public hearing on a four building, three-story mixed-use project located at 3555 Route 9W, site of the old M&S auto dealership.

Surveyor Patti Brooks gave an overview of the project to the Planning Board and the public.

“We are proposing four mixed use buildings, each containing approximately 2,500 sq/ft of commercial space at the street level and nine residential units. On the second and third floors there will be 13 units for 35 per building for a total of 140 residential units. Eighty of those units will be one bedroom, 56 will be two bedroom and 4 of them will be three bedroom.”

Brooks said there will be a proposed 2,100 sq/ft clubhouse at the rear of the site bordering Roberto Avenue. “Other amenities include a gazebo with a dog run on the northerly end of the property and outdoor amenities such as a pergola and a BBQ area.”

Upstate Films to open screening room in Kingston

(Times Union)

The former location of a barbershop in Midtown Kingston will soon be home to an entirely different kind of clips. Construction has begun to remake the small space into Upstate Films’ newest theater, its first foray into Kingston, which is slated to open Sept. 19. 

Upstate Films, the half-century-old film nonprofit, owns two other theaters in Rhinebeck and in Saugerties, where it offers a diverse program of arthouse films, classic cinema and live events. The new space, located at 591 Broadway, will house a micro theater of fewer than 50 seats (by comparison, the average cineplex screen has between 150-200 seats) with programming from both Upstate Films as well as community partners, including the Kingston Film Foundation, a younger nonprofit that screens second-run and under-the-radar films at pop-up locations.

Kingston seeks affordable housing at mixed-use site in the heart of Midtown

(HV1)

Midtown is getting ready to boom in population thanks to a number of housing initiatives in various stages of development. The list got longer today after the City of Kingston announced it was soliciting development proposals for 25 Field Court.

“We are looking for a developer who is willing and capable of cleaning up the site and ideally interested in creating affordable housing with mixed-use potential,” Mayor Steve Noble said in a statement. “This area is ripe for creating housing density while bringing other exciting amenities to the surrounding community. We are excited to see what visions folks have for this site to reach its full potential.”

The city-owned parcel in Midtown spans 0.85 acres near West Kill Supply. Positioned between Field Court and O’Neil Street, the site includes a long-vacant, 12,000-square-foot brick building built in 1966 and two surface parking lots. Located adjacent to the Midtown Linear Park and near the Broadway business corridor, the property is zoned mixed-use and can host commercial or residential development.

Midtown Kingston might be the county’s most exciting and dynamic neighborhood. Its residents are culturally and economically diverse, and its communities are interwoven. It’s home to the city hall, the high school, YMCA, several healthcare facilities (including a sprawling hospital), churches, a mosque and myriad professional practices.

And then there’s the fun stuff: dozens of restaurants, cafes and bars; live-music venues hosting nationally renowned acts; art galleries, and even a dinnerware museum. Broadway and the Midtown linear park make getting around a breeze (just watch for bad drivers). With all this and more sandwiched between Uptown and Downtown Kingston — each with its own embarrassment of charms — it’s no wonder more people want to hang out and live here.

The problem is that, there’s a housing crisis. The most recent annual study found the vacancy rate in buildings with six or more units built before 1974 was just 1.57 percent. The numbers, challenged all the way up to New York’s highest court by a coalition of landlords, were held by the judiciary to be accurate — thus protecting Kingston renters under New York’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act. 

Finding an affordable rental is a challenge. A search on Apartments.com revealed just four rental listings in Midtown Kingston, two freshly renovated two-bedroom units for a monthly rent of $3100 each, and two one-bedroom units, one for $1450 a month and the other at $1600 a month.

If you’re looking to buy a home — again, good luck. Kingston has been a hot real-estate market for several years. Estimates of median home asking prices are stratospheric compared to just a few years prior. Sale prices generally run from $300,000 to $450,000.

Look at Radio Kingston’s courtyard and surrounding areas to see an even darker side of the housing emergency — homelessness, poverty, mental illness, drug addiction and prostitution.

Here’s the good news: City officials are not sitting idly by. Mayor Steve Noble has set a goal to develop 1000 additional units of housing throughout the city by 2029. Through a series of political maneuvers, grants and tax incentives, Midtown is finally getting more housing, though affordable units account for only a small percentage.

Barrel Factory

Construction workers for the Barrel Factory Apartments project are currently doing a twelve-unit renovation to the former barrel factory at 104 Smith Avenue. near the railroad tracks and the post office. A brand-new four-story building next to it at 35 Bruyn Street will have 100 residential units in addition to commercial space. Second-hand shopping wonderland Free to Thrift is a confirmed tenant. Altogether, there will be 32 affordable housing units and 80 priced at market rate. 

There were lots of carrots at the end of the stick for Barrel Factory builders MHV Development. The developers secured a $840,000 Restore New York grant and tapped into state and federal Historic Preservation Tax Credits, which can offset 40 percent to 60 percent of qualified rehabilitation expenses. Those carrots translate into an estimated $1.4 million in equity for the project.

The Barrel Factory project alone will increase Midtown’s population by around 250 people, but there’s much more getting started.

Broadway Commons

The long-derelict former King’s Inn building at 615 Broadway was partially demolished in 2011 and used for a full-scale U.S. Army drill simulating a dirty-bomb attack. It subsequently sat empty for years before Baxter Development Co. secured the city’s green light to develop Broadway Commons, including 70 residential units, commercial space, and a built-out Deep Listening Plaza dedicated to the late local avant-garde musical genius Pauline Oliveros.

Just 20 percent of the units at this location will be affordable. The rest will be “workforce housing,” which for the layman means less affordable than affordable housing, more affordable than market rate.

Approved by Kingston’s planning board in June 2025, the project includes a $132,000 contribution to the city’s recreation trust fund to offset the impact on public spaces Currently in pre-construction with final plans being prepared, groundbreaking is expected in late 2025 or early 2026, and completion likely by 2027. Development is paused while the state reviews its brownfield cleanup program application and environmental investigation plan. Construction can’t begin until cleanup requirements are approved. If granted brownfield status, the developers gain access to state tax credits, grants and liability protections that help offset remediation costs and make the site financially viable to build on .

Other housing initiatives

A third light at the end of the housing emergency tunnel is 25 Field Court, a derelict 12,000-square-foot brick building from 1966 with two parking lots. The city owns this property and recently put out a call for businesses to submit concepts. Similar to the old King’s Inn location, developers here can apply for brownfield status to cut costs. Mayor Noble has indicated he’d like to see another mixed-use building with a mix of affordable housing and commercial space.

In June 2025, the Kingston City Land Bank cleared the long-vacant Grand Slam Bar property on Grand Street to make way for a new infill housing project. The concept calls for up to twelve affordable units.

Beyond the high-profile Midtown projects, Kingston is advancing several other housing efforts across the city.

The Elizabeth Manor Cooperative will convert a former boarding house into 15 affordable homeownership units, while the Legacy City Access Program is rehabilitating four vacant single-family homes for first-time income-eligible buyers. 

RUPCO is partnering with the city to renovate ten distressed homes for affordable sale, and a countywide affordable apartment rehabilitation initiative is upgrading more than 200 units, many of which are in Kingston.

Other Midtown developments

With hundreds of residents moving into Midtown over the coming years, they’re going to need something more to do. While there’s no shortage of activities in the neighborhood, a number of developments underway will make Midtown even more vibrant and active.

The Metro, at South Prospect Street and Greenkill Avenue, is a 70,000-square-foot former Pilgrim Furniture warehouse being transformed by the NoVo Foundation (run by Peter Buffett, son of billionaire Warren Buffett) into a carbon-neutral hub for manufacturing, education and the arts.

Funded entirely through NoVo’s philanthropic investment (estimated at $30 million to $40 million), the project incorporates geothermal heating and cooling, reclaimed and recycled materials, high-efficiency insulation, and water conservation systems. Groundbreaking took place in 2023, and construction is progressing toward an expected 2026 completion. When finished, the Metro will house maker spaces, fabrication facilities, classrooms, youth training areas, event space, and offices for creative and community-based organizations.

Thanks to a $477,000 Restore New York Community Initiative grant, the Headstone Gallery project will transform the long-vacant building at 289 Foxhall Avenue into an arts hub featuring studio rentals for independent artisans, administrative offices for local arts nonprofits, and apprenticeship and job-shadowing opportunities for high-school students. The project also includes landscaping improvements for the parking area to mesh with an anticipated street redesign.

A small community park is planned on a 0.55-acre former railyard along the Midtown linear-park trail between Cornell and Downs streets in Kingston. Designed by Port Architecture Urbanism and KaN Landscape Designers, the space will feature indigenous plantings, play elements, and flexible areas for both passive and active use, blending landscaped greenery with spots for community gathering. Funded in part by a million-dollar grant from the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, the park is in the design phase following extensive public input. Completion is targeted for fall 2026.

Smaller commercial developments are underway. Kingston Bread + Bar is currently renovating the old Pakt restaurant to bring its high-end baked goods — popular with tourists and locals alike — to 608 Broadway.

Opening September 19, 2025 in a former Midtown barbershop, Upstate Films’ Kingston micro-theater will offer 40 to 50 seats for arthouse, documentary and repertory screenings. Developed in partnership with the Kingston Film Foundation, the space has been retrofitted with tiered seating and a rear-projection system. In addition to film programming, the micro-theater will host community discussions and special events.

Kingston Standard Brewing Co. is undertaking a major expansion with the help of a $550,000 Restore New York grant, moving its beer production into a newly built, fossil-fuel-free facility next door while expanding restaurant operations.

Momentum citywide plus

Beyond the high-profile Midtown projects, Kingston has been advancing several other major housing efforts across the city. Some of these are seeing the light of day. Others aren’t and won’t ever.

The Golden Hill Apartments currently under construction the former Ulster County Jail site are now a sure thing, bringing 164 intergenerational affordable units with community amenities, is slated for completion in 2026.

Uptown, The Kingstonian on North Front Street, consisting of 143 apartments plus a 20 room hotel and commercial space, appears in limbo years after governmental approval and considerable state inducement.

The City of Kingston government has been pushing for the construction of 200 units of housing opposite the police station on Garraghan Drive near the foot of Broadway. The city’s also talked about considering housing up in the industrial park off Delaware Avenue in Midtown, where a late 2024 planning study envisaged construction of 300 to 600 housing units.

Let’s close with Ulster County’s most innovative response to the darker side of the housing emergency, the homeless and the poverty-stricken. Just west of the Kingston Thruway entrance, RUPCO is working to complete a facility with 70 units of permanent affordable supportive housing for the homeless. With sewer and water pipes extended from Kingston under the Thruway, the former Quality Inn will boast a community room, a kitchen, a daycare center and a swimming pool. Most importantly. a variety of support services will be available at the facility on a regular basis (as will be public transportation). The place will provide a valuable helping hand to those most in need.

Ulster Strong is pleased to share this news - we had deep reservations about this proposal being next to an elementary school.

"A controversial application for a pet cremation facility next to an elementary school has been withdrawn.



Town zoning code changes are still expected, however, even with the Aug. 3 withdrawal of an application for the Heavenly Heart Pet Cremation facility, the town supervisor said.

Supervisor David Plavchak, who said the code is expected to become even more stringent than is currently proposed, provided the update on Monday, Aug. 11, during a telephone interview."