Transformation in Progress: From Prison to Park
By Geoff Howard
When the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility closed its doors in 2011, Warwick — its leadership and its residents — realized that they had been presented with an opportunity.
The MOCF was originally designed in the 1930’s as the New York State School for Boys,” aka “reform school,” for New York City’s wayward youth. The idea was to get them away from the City’s bad influences and out “in the country” where they could learn and also grow vegetables and milk cows.
What this meant was that the property looked and felt more like a combination rural prep school and farm than a prison, and it was set on 750 park-like acres with mostly small buildings — the prisoners slept in “cottages” — in good condition, and as a bonus, a magnificent lake.
For a town of 30,000 inhabitants, actively seeking ways to preserve its rural character, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After three years of negotiations, the property was sold in 2014 to the Town in two parcels: roughly 150 acres for potential commercial development for $3.7 million … and the remaining 600 acres as parkland for $1!
Today, the one-time prison, which had become an adult prison before being vacated, is a thriving Corporate Park with many successful businesses and the large, spectacularly beautiful Wickham Woodlands Park, built around Wickham Lake. Good jobs, tax revenues, and preserved open space used every day by Warwick residents … opportunity realized.
Or almost realized.
There was one small, 10-acre piece of “unfinished business” that needed to be resolved. Known as the “mess between the fences,” this parcel had a weird shape. It looked like a squared-off horseshoe, roughly 1,000 feet long on two of its 3 sides and roughly 120 - 150 feet wide, with playground-style fencing inside and out.
The main reason this area had been overlooked and allowed to go to unsightly seed was that it was an “orphan,” partly owned by the Town and partly by the Hudson Sports Complex, one of the many successful business enterprises that had been established in the Corporate Park.
But a way forward was soon found. A collaborative coalition of Town government, community organizations, some local businesses (including the Sports Complex), and Warwick residents joined forces to transform the “mess” into a community asset.
Thus, Transformation Trails was born and things started happening.
— Town Supervisor Michael Sweeton said the Town DPW would handle clearing the unsightly undergrowth;
— The head of the Shade Tree Commission, Karen Emmerich, felt she had finally found a home for a long-desired Warwick Arboretum;
— The Warwick Valley Gardeners and Sustainable Warwick saw a perfect opportunity to create Pollinator Meadows;
— The owner/operator of the Sports Complex saw an opportunity to not only clean up the unattractive jumble of invasive growth around her property, but to create walking paths with exercise stations.
It all became much more “real,” however, when local sculptor and landscape planner Amy Lewis pulled it all together with a Master Plan that included all the items on the table, and added two more — a sculpture garden and, perhaps a dream, an amphitheater that would look out over the Lake and the mountains in the distance:
Amy Lewis also included some renderings, made possible by one of the other Transformation team members, Brenden Wagner, who just happened to be a drone photographer, which suddenly made the whole idea “visible” to everyone … and now everyone includes Tri-State Lookout readers.
Here you can see it all: the buildings of the Sports Complex, the large green areas that will, in time, be an Arboretum with lovely trees, paths and sculptures; the yellow areas on the Lake side where the twin Pollinator Meadows, each 400’x60’ will be; and, if you look closely, tucked between those Meadows — the purple site of the future amphitheater with its amazing view.
Most exciting of all, it’s starting to actually happen, to move from Master Plan and artist’s renditions to reality. DPW has cleared more than half the site. The first trees of the Arboretum were planted in late April. Preparation of the Meadows is a lengthy process, but it too started in July. Fundraising is actively going on, grant applications are being explored, and a big grand opening festival is planned for November, when a major tree-planting and the seeding of the Meadow will take place.
So an interesting history led to an opportunity for a nice town in the Hudson Valley, and forces are working together to turn that opportunity into a reality.
Correction: This story has been corrected to include acknowledgement that the prison property housed adults after the initial period of housing adolescents.
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