Planned Food Exchange remains in the works
The planned Kingston Food Exchange in Uptown is still in the works, one of the developers said this week.
KINGSTON, N.Y. » The planned Kingston Food Exchange in Uptown is still in the works, one of the developers said this week.
First proposed in late 2015, the Kingston Food Exchange is to be a combination food service, preparation and packaging facility.
The city Planning Board approved the project in February 2017.
Zachary Lewis, a partner in BBG Ventures and 311 Partners LLC, said the developers are still doing some fund raising and planning to go forward with the project that would occupy the former Woolworth store at 311 Wall St.
“We’re still working financing,” Lewis said. He said the developers hope to begin working in the spring or summer, depending on the weather. Lewis said they have to fix the parking lot behind their Wall Street building and then do work inside the structure.
Lewis said that, once work starts, the project would be completed within seven to eight months.
The Industrial Development Agency in October approved approximately $1.9 million in tax breaks for the project. The agency board’s action covers separate applications by building owner 311 Partners LLC and planned tenant BBG Ventures.
For 311 Partners LLC, a 15-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal will excuse the company from paying an estimated $1.4 million in property taxes. The group also received a sales tax waiver of about $184,000 for construction-related purchases and a $25,000 mortgage recording tax exemption.
The group purchased the Wall Street building at a tax auction for $475,000.
BBG Ventures, which will lease space in the Wall Street building, will have an estimated $311,780 in sales taxes waived on the purchase of equipment and materials needed for renovation. The group will, however, have to pay a $91,834.95 fee to the Industrial Development Agency, which is an amount equal to 1 percent of the estimated $9.18 million cost of the project.
Woolworth operated in the Wall Street building from 1956 until early 1994. In the years after the store closed, the space was occupied at different times by the party supply store SavOn and the records management firm Medrex.
The building dates to the 1880s.