A plan is in the works to tear down a major part of what remains of the former Dutchess Mall in Fishkill and replace it with a 350,166-square-foot warehouse. The developer is CHI/Acquisitions LP, located in Montclair, New Jersey. The CHI name refers to Crow Holdings Industrial. The property is owned by Hudson Properties LLC, located in Pound Ridge.

According to Attorney Richard O’Rourke of the Fishkill office of the White Plains-based law firm Keane & Beane, the plan would involve subdividing the approximately 39.3 acres of land into two parcels. The lot on which the warehouse would be built would be purchased by CHI and would cover 28.9 acres. The remaining lot, 10.4 acres, would be retained by Hudson Properties and would be used for future development.

The Dutchess Mall opened in 1974 and was strategically located in the area where Route 9 and Interstate 84 intersected. It was the first shopping mall in Dutchess County. It originally was anchored by two department stores, Mays and Luckey Platt. After a few years, Jamesway opened in the space where Mays had been and Service Merchandise opened where Luckey Platt had been. Those retailers eventually moved out and a flea market opened up in the former Service Merchandise site and a branch of Dutchess Community College took the Jamesway space. The college had signed a 15-year lease for  47,000 square feet of space and still operates there. Also at the northern end of the former mall, near Dutchess Community College, is a Home Depot store.

O’Rourke pointed out that the Comprehensive Plan for the town of Fishkill that was prepared in 2009 identified the mall as being “an abandoned and underutilized property” and encouraged its redevelopment.

“The warehouse building is proposed in substantially the same location as the existing Dutchess Mall buildings with the associated off-street parking and loading docks,” O’Rourke said. “The site was also carefully designed to minimize any impacts to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation wetland area at the rear of the property.”

O’Rourke said that there would be 215 parking spaces provided in the proposed development, 78 loading docks essentially grouped on two sides of the warehouse, four drive-in ramps and 30 trailer parking spaces. He said that while Fishkill’s Zoning Code would require 387 parking spaces for the project, the developer believes that the 215 spaces being proposed would be adequate.

O’Rourke said that the warehouse would be built on speculation and that as of now no tenant has been lined up. He said that two existing driveway entrances off Route 9 would be maintained and a traffic impact study completed in May indicates that the warehouse “is not expected to have a significant adverse impact on the adjacent roadways.”

The application for the proposed project was accepted by the Fishkill Planning Board at its June 9 meeting and referred to various boards and commissions, including Dutchess County and the New York State Department of Transportation, as part of beginning the review.

Brad Vander Vliet of CHI/Acquisitions said that the company is the development arm of Crow Holdings Industrial, which is based in Dallas.

“We’ve been in business since the 1960s and used to be Trammell Crow Companies, which was subsequently sold to CBRE in 2006. The family had spun off and retained ownership of Crow Holdings and Trammell Crow Residential. We’ve built over,  I believe, 60 million square feet of industrial space throughout the country,” Vander Vliet said. “We have 12 offices throughout the country. We are well-capitalized. We are probably one of the top-three developers in the country of industrial space. We’ve got over $5 billion in assets we retain ownership of and we would be retaining ownership of this asset as well if we are successful in our application.”

Trammell Crow Company is an independently operated subsidiary of CBRE. It says it has developed or acquired 2,800 buildings valued at nearly $70 billion and consisting of more than 625 million square feet of space. It bills itself as the largest commercial real estate developer in the U.S. with $19.8 billion in active projects in process, and an additional $10.1 billion in the pipeline as of March 31, 2022.

Anthony Castillo, principal of SESI Consulting Engineers, said that a number of underground detention systems and water treatment systems would be used to control stormwater runoff while also noting that the site has previously been built upon.

“The intent is to make sure we do not modify in any way any of the existing drainage patterns,” Castillo said. “We have prepared a fully compliant lighting plan and landscape plan that certainly will meet the intent and purpose of the township code.”

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