KARC Planning Consultants appeared before the City of Poughkeepsie Industrial Development Agency on Sept. 24 to present an application from North Cherry Holdings LLC to convert the building at 15 North Cherry Street into 42 affordable apartments.

Kelly Leiboldt, representing the applicant, described the property as a four-story, roughly 40,000-square-foot building that previously received site-plan approval from the City Planning Board in 2022 for conversion to 42 apartments. Leiboldt said all units would be affordable at 80% of area median income (AMI). She described the unit mix in the presentation and subsequent Q&A as 36 one-bedroom units and 6 two-bedroom units. Rents were presented in the application and in Leiboldt's remarks as "$14.51" for a one-bedroom and "$16.32" for a two-bedroom, as reported in the meeting record; Leiboldt said those figures correspond to the 80% AMI structure for the project.

Leiboldt told the board the overall construction cost is projected at about $12,900,000 and that owner equity committed to the project is $5,000,000. She said conventional financing has been discussed but financing terms and exact lender commitments were not finalized; the applicant anticipates a 30-year financing term but the details remain subject to final lender approval. Leiboldt also said the applicant is applying for a sales tax exemption of $280,000 and a mortgage tax exemption of $96,000; the structure and term of a proposed payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement had not been finalized and she said the applicant would continue those negotiations with the IDA.

On jobs, Leiboldt said the project would create an estimated 73 construction jobs in the first year and, after completion, would yield a small number of ongoing positions (she cited one management job and one maintenance job in year one and additional administrative/professional positions in year two). Leiboldt said the basement would contain tenant storage and a small fitness room and that there would be no retail space in the building.

Board members asked several questions about parking, unit mix, stormwater, and renderings. Leiboldt said the approved site plan shows diagonal parking adjacent to the building and that the plan appears to provide roughly 15 parking spaces; she said she would provide the site plan, architectural drawings and floor plans to the board before the next meeting. A board member asked about environmental concerns near the adjacent creek; Leiboldt said municipal water and sewer serve the site and that she would provide details about the stormwater plan at the next meeting.

Next steps: the IDA will post the application on its website and engage the IDA's third-party cost-benefit reviewer (Growth of America) to prepare the agency's analysis. Leiboldt confirmed an escrow payment had been submitted and the board said an escrow account would be started for the cost-benefit analysis; Growth of America will set the scope and cost, and the IDA will notify the applicant of the escrow requirement.

No formal board vote was taken on the 15 North Cherry application at this meeting; the project will return to the IDA for review after the third-party cost-benefit analysis is received.