Our Community Building & Engagement team helps build sustainable, inclusive and participatory communities.
Our team layers multiple strategies to preserve and strengthen neighborhoods.
We empower residents and stakeholders to create communities of opportunity for all. We build leadership skills, promote equitable economic development, and strengthen neighborhood connections.
The Middle Main Initiative is a program of Hudson River Housing working to strengthen and preserve a strong, vibrant, and creative Main Street corridor in the City of Poughkeepsie. This initiative celebrates the many assets of the community and employs dynamic strategies to build upon them.
We employ innovative strategies that:
Small businesses are the foundation of a vibrant Main Street corridor. Through our small business incubator at the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory, located in the heart of Middle Main, new and expanding businesses get the support they need to launch and grow. Our job training programs are also connecting local residents to career options in hospitality, the arts, and community stewardship.
In addition, we are an active partner supporting a vibrant commercial corridor by redeveloping vacant properties, revitalizing storefronts, supporting anchor institutions like The Art Effect to call Main Street home, attracting entrepreneurs, and engaging the community in neighborhood events and activities.
Safe, clean and attractive public spaces are one of the top concerns of local residents. Hudson River Housing is investing in the neighborhood by organizing beautification projects and rehabilitating vacant properties.
We currently own and manage two public spaces, Murphy Park, located in front of the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory at 517 Main Street, and Jardin de las Rosas, located on the corner of Rose Street at 535 Main Street. We are working to keep these spaces accessible and serving as assets in our neighborhood.
Poughkeepsie’s greatest asset is its people. Whether residents were born in the Hudson Valley, or landed here from another state or country, the Middle Main Initiative brings them together to form the diverse identity of this neighborhood.
Through strategies including our Community Leadership Program, resident advisory committees, and our Inclusive Communities Working Group, we provide opportunities to join together to shape the future of the city of Poughkeepsie.
Our team works to collect information on neighborhood conditions to guide our strategies, advocate for greater resources, and inform the work of partners and government. Take a look at the results of our most recent survey.
The award-winning redevelopment of the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory is the anchor project in Hudson River Housing’s work in the Middle Main Street corridor.
This three story, 22,000 square foot historic building has been completely restored as a hub of residential, commercial and community activity.
The building features the Poughkeepsie Open Kitchen shared-use commercial kitchen for food entrepreneurs, PUF Studios, and The Art Effect
The Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory also features fifteen apartments, including eleven affordable units, a small greenspace, and frontage on the Fall Kill Creek.
The PUF Coffee House & Cafe closed as of Friday, July 31, 2020.
Our space is still available for community events and meetings. We are also supporting a diverse and growing network of food and beverage entrepreneurs who are operating pop-up events throughout the week!
The Open Kitchen is a shared-use commercial kitchen designed to support and promote small-scale food entrepreneurs in the Hudson Valley. The kitchen is fully operational and expanding!
Our mission is to support the launch and growth of food businesses through commercial kitchen access, business development training, and community connections.
We have 3,000 sq. ft. of commercial grade food prep, cooking, packaging, and storage space that is fully equipped for your use.
The Poughkeepsie Trolley Barn is a community space by and for diverse art practitioners that serves as a community hub for the promotion of the arts in Poughkeepsie. Hudson River Housing is committed to stewarding the Trolley Barn as a place where artists and community members can meaningfully connect with each other and celebrate what makes Poughkeepsie a unique and special place. The Trolley Barn presents a special opportunity to showcase how the arts can make a transformational difference in the lives of youth and adults.
We are proud to host several local organizations at the Trolley Barn, including:
Hudson River Housing’s Northeastern Dutchess Initiative works to advance solutions to shared concerns for affordable housing and inclusive economic development in the region.
Our objective is to advocate for and undertake direct action to secure an equitable and sustainable future for the rural communities of northeastern Dutchess that ensures a continuum of affordable housing options exists for all current and future residents.
Hudson River Housing is a founding member of the Tri-Town Coalition, a group of local residents, stakeholders and town boards working together for quality housing we can all afford.
The Tri-Town Coalition unites the geographic area of Pine Plains, North East, and Amenia to address common challenges. The goal of the Tri-Town Coalition is to attract more quality housing for business owners, workers, young people, seniors, and all who want to live in the area. The Tri-Town Coalition provides information on housing ideas, innovations, and decision-making in our regions so that residents can engage with the process.
Current actions the TTC undertakes include education and advocacy on housing issues, collaboration through town-based working groups, and technical assistance for housing development.
Everyone should be able to access housing that is within their means. We want to make that possible.
Hudson River Housing works to increase the supply of affordable housing in the Hudson Valley through new construction, rehabilitation and historic preservation projects. Our housing development work has proved an important part of neighborhood revitalization efforts taking place in the City of Poughkeepsie and throughout the Mid-Hudson Valley.
Through our housing development we have invested over $184 million dollars into the creation of over 1,200 units of housing and 60 commercial spaces.
As a regional organization, our work has a broad impact. However, we have undertaken focused investment in the City of Poughkeepsie throughout our history. This has resulted in the creation of 677 affordable rental units, 37 affordable homeownership opportunities, and over $125,381,491 invested in the City alone.
Crannell Square is the redevelopment of the parking lot at the corner of Catherine and Mill Streets in Poughkeepsie into 75 units of mixed-income housing. Hudson River Housing is co-developing Crannell Square with Kearney Realty & Development Group.
Affordable housing is an extremely urgent need for the city right now, and it has an important role to play in securing the future of our city. As Poughkeepsie sees the pace of development intensifying, projects like Crannell Square ensure that we embed a foundation of long-term affordable housing to safeguard against rampant gentrification. As a non-profit co-developer of this project, it is our mission to ensure that its primary purpose is to provide high-quality, well-designed, healthy, affordable housing for city residents for the life of the project.
Recognizing that the process of real estate development, and particularly the financing, is complex, we offer the following overview about the proposed Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement for Crannell Square. We welcome any and all questions about this project! Please contact Mary Linge, Director of Real Estate Development, at mlinge@hudsonriverhousing.org or (845) 453-9745.
Brochure and Income Restrictions
Windows on Main is proposed to be a mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhood regeneration and reclamation project for a more equitable future in Middle Main. This project is still in the pre-development phase, in which many components of the project may possibly change or evolve. For any questions, concerns, or feedback about this project, please contact mlinge@hudosnriverhousing.org.
Below is a sample of some of our current and past projects.
