Theater group gets grant for arts center
Arm of the Sea Theater has gotten a $74,000 grant to study how a performance arts and education center can be built on property overlooking the Lower Esopus Creek.
The project was discussed during a Village Board meeting Monday, with theater co-founder Patrick Wadden noting the state Department of Environmental Conservation funding is for planning on the 1.55-acre property.
“It will be a multi-functional property including performances, environmental education programs, historical programs on the history of Saugerties and regional heritage, and things yet to be discovered,” he said.
The property is on the north side of Tina Chorvas Park and has 350 feet of waterfront along the creek. It is owned by Sloop Clearwater and expected to be turned over to Arm of the Sea Theater under a lease purchase agreement once work is complete under a separate state grant awarded in 2012.
“When the property is secured and the New York Rising part of the project is finished then the title will transfer to us,” Wadden said. “The shoreline stabilization ... is one of three waterfront projects funded in the village of Saugerties by New York Rising. It is repairing a section of bulkhead in Tina Chorvas Park and a section of bulkhead in this property, and doing some of the initial site work (clearing and fencing) on this property.”
The planning grant will be used to conduct background research on the property, which was once used as part of the paper production industry.
“It’s been an abandoned property since the 1960s and become a hobo jungle,” Wadden said. “It’s become an attractive nuisance and a liability and no one else has wanted to take this on. The developer of The Mill (apartment) project split it off from the rest of the property and offered it to the village and the village didn’t want it. They gave it to Clearwater because it had its winter home here for many years ... but for any number of reasons that didn’t work out for them.”
Arm of the Sea Theater has given performances at Tina Chorvas Park for several years and constructs its props at a studio nearby on Cantine’s Island.
“The later history of the site is less understood than the earlier history,” Wadden said.
“It was a paper mill since 1827,” he said. “It went through different stages, a fire, they had to rebuild it. They changed machinery and kept growing... (before) falling into decline in the 20th Century.”