The Long Dock Beacon Hotel and Conference Center
Background
The Long Dock Beacon project (“LDB”) will bring together a consortium of stakeholders including conservationists, a private developer, governmental officials and community participants to transform a long-underutilized and environmentally degraded 25-acre site on the banks of the Hudson River in Beacon, New York (about a one hour and 20-minute drive or commuter train ride from Manhattan) into a new model waterfront park enveloping a full service 166-room hotel and executive conference center built to the highest standards of environmental sustainability.
The Long Dock Beacon project has been many years in the making and will be the realization of the community and environmental vision of the site’s owner, The Scenic Hudson Land Trust, Inc. Scenic Hudson is partnering with private developer Foss Group Beacon, LLC to create an $85 million project that will include the hotel and executive conference center, wellness center and spa, three dining/food venues, indoor and outdoor banquet facilities, a public pier and civic plaza, a kayak center, park, and trails. All with spectacular unobstructed views up and down the Hudson River.
The Long Dock Beacon project is arguably the most significant project of its type ever contemplated in North America as it will be built to and beyond the Gold LEED standard under the Green Building Rating System administered by the U.S. Green Building Council.
The project concept grew out of extensive community planning workshops and is the centerpiece of a major community development effort. To make it financially feasible, the project will utilize an array of innovative financing sources and capital enhancements including grants, subordinated debt, local public infrastructure financing and specialized federal and state tax credits. Long Dock is a “triple-bottom-line project” with financial, environmental, and economic-development payoff. Thus it has attracted financial support from the private sector, and enlightened/subordinated support from environmental and economic development sources.
Long Dock Beacon will serve as a model for how public-private partnerships can create cutting-edge environmentally sustainable, community-enhancing developments that help reclaim and conserve precious assets and natural resources.
The Beacon area is acknowledged as one of the most exciting evolving areas in the Hudson River Valley -- a variety of innovative and regionally significant projects are located there, including the Dia:Beacon contemporary art museum in a transformed Nabisco factory, and The Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries. Beacon’s Main Street is lined with galleries, restaurants, and antique stores. Beacon’s City government is strong and well-organized.
The Long Dock Beacon Hotel and Executive Conference Center
Project Components
The Long Dock Beacon peninsula is 25 acres.
The hotel will occupy 8.5 acres of that total, and will include the following facilities:
- 166 full service hotel rooms, every one of which has an un-obstructed river view
- 26,000 square foot hi-tech executive conference center and ballroom
- 6,500 square foot gourmet restaurant seating 200
- 6,000 square foot water-edge bistro seating 200
- 18,000 square foot health and fitness club and spa
- A seasonal outdoor food and beverage venue
- A harbor for non-motorized craft with public kayak storage & concessions
- A working greenhouse, open to the public
- 1,000 square feet of retail space
The Long Dock Beacon Hotel and Executive Conference Center
Park and Riverfront Development by The Scenic Hudson Land Trust
While the Hotel is under construction, Scenic Hudson will develop the 16.3 acre park surrounding the hotel and conference center. Scenic Hudson will create public amenities in a synergistic mix with the hotel and will help guarantee one bottom-line principle of the entire project: The shoreline will always remain publicly accessible and will not be privatized, nor will the public feel that the hotel is “unfriendly.”
Scenic Hudson funded amenities will surround the hotel and the hotel will be “permeable” so that one can always see a clear and public way to reach the river. Scenic Hudson and Foss Group Beacon have, from day one, selected the same architects, engineers, and consultants so that public and private areas are feel seamless and functionally complimentary.
Specifically, Scenic Hudson’s amenities will include:
- Shoreline/bulkhead design allowing constant public access to the biodiversity of the site’s inter-tidal zone, with its twice-daily 3-foot tides and fluctuating salinity.
- A 12,000 square foot public civic plaza for events from farmers markets to concerts.
- A pedestrian way on the northern pier allowing public river-edge access.
- Meadows of native grasses and plants.
- Interpretive areas and enhancement of wetlands.
- A boardwalk and trails.
- A universally-accessible walkway and fishing pier.
- Areas for picnicking and recreation.
- A community boat-building program in the historic “Red Barn.”
