The Regional Gateway signs also identify nine Discovery Zones — five in Poughkeepsie and four in Highland. “They’re places that the committee and the consultant felt were compelling enough that visitors from out of town would want to see once they got to the Walkway,” says Anzevino. Descriptions of each Discovery Zone will be provided on Regional Gateway signs, as well as the distance from the east and west sides of the Walkway so that visitors can decide what they’d like to do and what they have time for.
The Discovery Zones in Poughkeepsie are the downtown area, the waterfront, Little Italy, Union Street Historic Neighborhood and the Southside Historic District. Discovery Zones in Highland are the hamlet of Highland, the Highland waterfront, Illinois Mountain paired with Berean Park and Franny Reese State Park. The Discovery Zones were chosen as places that offer things for Walkway visitors to do: dining, shopping, tour boats, historic sites, museums, hiking, bicycling, swimming and parks.
Once people arrive at a Discovery Zone there will be two-foot by three-foot signs that explain the historic significance of the place. The Discovery Zone signs include an enlarged portion of the Greater Walkway Region map, some text and historic photos.
The third type of sign will be color-coded directional signs that will direct people from the Walkway to each Discovery Zone and from one Discovery Zone to another.
But while the colorful and eye-catching signs have been designed, the funding to fabricate them and erect them is not yet secured. “We had hoped it would have been done by now,” says Anzevino, “but we did not get the grant we applied for in late summer, so it’s back to the drawing board on that.”
Businesses, organizations, or individuals can help support this program by sponsoring Regional Gateway Signs or Discovery Zone signs at a cost of $3,000-$4,500 for a three-year sponsorship. Information on sponsorship can be obtained from Jill Romeo at [email protected]. Signs will include the sponsor’s business contact information up to 40 characters.
Once the signs are in place, subsequent phases of the branding project involve a Greater Walkway Region website and a video that will describe the Walkway and the region, says Anzevino.
New zoning
In addition to the signage, however, the committee identified something else it felt was necessary to fully develop the Greater Walkway Region, says Anzevino: rezoning Route 9W between the Mid-Hudson Bridge approach and Milton Avenue in order to encourage redevelopment of abandoned and underutilized properties.
The Walkway is an old railroad bridge, he notes, and the types of land uses that were conducted along that railroad line involved things like warehouses, coal distribution centers and lumberyards. “And when the trains stopped running,” says Anzevino, “these buildings didn’t go away.”
But neglected industrial properties aren’t conducive to tourism, and asking visitors to spend time in the region surrounding the Walkway will require the creation of a better context for the Walkway, he says. “It’s one thing to have a park that’s amazing, but when someone drives from hours away, and as they get near, and the things that they see are abandoned car dealers and large parking lots and buildings that could be spruced up, I think the anticipation for them starts fading.”
To that end, plans have been developed to create more of a “Main Street” feel on Route 9W, says Anzevino, “with buildings closer to the road, two and three story buildings, mixed use, with restaurants and retail, cafés below and apartments above. It’s our opportunity to put our best foot forward to the rest of the world.
“After all, this $40 million state park is based on the notion of walking and biking, and with people coming from all over the world, shouldn’t our communities that surround the park have better walking and bicycling environments, especially if we want to get people to and from the bridge and park to Highland and Route 9W to eat and support those local businesses?”
And in addition to strengthening the tourism industry, he says, communities with rail trails, bicycle and pedestrian access do well economically because people like to live near trails, both for recreational purposes and even for transportation. “Access to rail trails is now a selling point for realtors,” says Anzevino.
Scenic Hudson presented their plan to revitalize the areas around the Walkway to the Lloyd Town Board in June of 2013, who adopted changes in zoning to encourage new development to create a stronger pedestrian connection between the Walkway and the community.
“Now that the zoning has passed, I think it’s going to be important for Scenic Hudson to work closely with the town and others to try to promote this area to the rest of the world,” Anzevino says. “We don’t want to wait around for people to find out that there’s new zoning that’s designed to encourage investment; we want to let them know that there are things happening now.”
Great idea. We have many, many wonderful but disconnected attractions in the region and we are failing in how we brand and direct visitors to them – whether it be a great restaurant in New Paltz, a farm-to-table producer in Ulster County; an artisan in Highland…when people DO find these things they are always, “Wow. I didn’t know that existed here.” What we now need – and rumor is that ACE Hotel owners are going to be doing a boutique hotel off 9W near the Esopus…is about five other high-end boutique hotel destinations with great restaurants to help lure these visitors and get them to stay for two or three days. The economic impact of that is potentially huge. If you assess the potential, you have to realize that very famous destinations like Napa Valley and the Sonoma Regions of California are agriculture based economies that are masterfully branded, organized and offer hundreds of millions of dollars of annual economic benefits. We have CIA, we have the Walkway, we have Mohonk…we could have Williams Lake and many others…but we need to get serious as this proposal is and make it happen quickly. All in is the only way you can achieve it successfully. So let’s get moving! It will only benefit our local towns and residents with jobs, better local amenities and new entrepreneurs who will want to set up shop here.
Poughkeepsie area around the entrance to the Walkway is an eternal hellhole. I hate Starbucks but it IS a reassuring sign of gentrification for tourists and Poughkeepsie: You MUST put in a Starbucks near the entrance or on Main Street, near the train station or the Brasserie.
I can’t believe how dumb the Poughkeepsie officials are.