County building on the move?
Saying Troy structure is too old and too big, County Executive McLaughlin eyes relocation
TROY, N.Y. » Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin said the county is in the early stages of looking to possibly relocate the county building.
The county building is cur- rently located at, 1700 7th Ave, in downtown Troy, and McLaughlin believes that the building is too old and is too big for its needs.
“This building, it’s not conducive to growing the county and doing what we want to do, it doesn’t put our best foot forward,” said McLaughlin, who has been in office for nine months. “I think we need a new building to be more efficient.”
McLaughlin said the building is hard to keep clean and that it was really set up to be a school, with the building used to function as an old elementary school and high school years ago.
“The materials in here are
dated, so at some point you can say, we can do a major revamp and renovation of this building, which would be $8 to $12 million probably to really renovate this and what do I do with my [staff] while we’re renovating it,” McLaughlin said.
“Or you look and say, why don’t we really kick start this economy here and if you can bring in $100, $130 million, which is what the developers are saying, why would you not do that?”
McLaughlin said he can vision things like a small grocery store being located in the space of the current county building, a small park, office buildings, underground parking, and/ or 600 market-rate apartments.
“You would add 700 spots of parking to the city, which desperately needs it, you’d add a lot of tax revenue to the city and county and you would be bringing in 600 to 1,200 more residents living here,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said the current county building also doesn’t have easy access for people to get in and that the parking situation is not great around there either. He noted he has made some minor improvements to the current building, but said it would take a lot more to make the building fully functional long-term.
“Security [ here] is not where it needs to be in today’s standards,” said McLaughlin. “... So there’s multiple reasons why this building is way past its prime and why it needs to go, but the single biggest reason is economic development.”
McLaughlin added he has a vision and has had preliminary discussion with city officials in Troy to even potential have Troy City Hall be located in the same new potential county build- ing, which he said would be located somewhere within the city of Troy.
McLaughlin said the county would look to bond to finance the relocation and would also look to use some of the funds they would secure from selling the current property.
“This is about taking the county into the next 50 to 75 years and chances are when we slice and dice all of the numbers, we’re probably going to be able to build this [new] building and operate it for about what it costs us to do this,” McLaughlin said.