Kathleen Abel, president of the Southern County Economic Development Corporation, gave the committee a broad quarterly update on development across Putnam County, saying, “There’s a lot going on. Some of it’s good news, some of it’s a little bit of worrying, but we persevere.”

The report summarized dozens of active and proposed projects across villages and towns: senior-oriented condos and townhomes north of Route 6; a 50-unit multifamily proposal on Seminary Hill Road; a proposed 120-room boutique hotel in Patterson; a planned 80-unit second phase at Fox Run; and multiple warehouse proposals along Route 22 and elsewhere. Abel said a 100,000-square-foot warehouse is proposed next to Stack and Store in Patterson and at least six additional warehouse proposals are active in the southeast part of the county.

The EDC also called attention to a small commercial data-center proposal presented to McGrath Realty for a site off Valley Hack Grove. Abel said the prospective facility is roughly 10,500 square feet with an estimated 36 employees and raised power-delivery questions: "Datacenters take a whole lot of power," Abel said, noting the property would be served from the Haviland Hollow substation and urging follow-up on transmission capacity.

The report named several projects that stalled or changed because of financing or ownership changes: the Village of Brewster development after the death of a developer, a distillery succession after an owner’s death, and an assisted-living project that lost financing. Abel also noted the sale of Cimarron Ranch in Putnam Valley to the Hudson Highlands Land Trust and Salinger's Orchard near the county border seeking approval to host events.

Economic and land-use concerns threaded through the update. Abel said an influx of warehouses can depress local median wages because warehouse jobs generally do not pay as much as other industries; she told the committee she had heard that in neighboring counties. She also described reuse obstacles for large warehouse buildings — notably septic and Board of Health constraints that complicate conversion for human-occupied uses — and said local developers are exploring repurposing some buildings for indoor sports like pickleball.

Abel singled out film and television location work as a growing local economic opportunity and described a recent “Film Putnam” launch to attract location scouts. She said location scouts need quick, consistent responses from towns and property owners because productions move fast and will take alternate sites if a location is slow to respond.

Committee members asked Abel to follow up on two practical items: whether Carmel Cinema’s landlord refused to negotiate with the tenant and to provide the committee with the Southern County EDC quarterly report on a recurring basis. The committee also discussed infrastructure constraints — particularly electricity for data centers and road capacity for heavy truck traffic — and asked staff and developers to coordinate with utility providers and the state Department of Transportation as needed.

The update contained no formal votes. Committee members praised the EDC’s outreach and asked for follow-up reports on the data-center power assessment and the Carmel Cinema leasing situation.

For residents, Abel urged that town planning boards and property owners respond promptly to film-location inquiries and that towns address conversion barriers for existing industrial buildings. The EDC planned to continue quarterly reporting to the committee and to pursue outreach to utilities and county health officials on repurposing and capacity issues.