Forestburgh Set To Take Off?

Look at Forestburgh township on a map of Sullivan County, and you'll notice its one of the least developed townships, crisscrossed by the fewest roads. Its western flank is bordered by Swinging Bridge reservoir, and thousands of acres in the east are parts of state wildlife areas. Hartwood Road and Oakland Valley Road, running east to west across the southern part of Forestburgh, rank among some of the prettiest (and least developed) roads in the county.

Forestburgh has been kind of a Sleeping Beauty, while fancier developments took root further north in Bethel and further west towards the Delaware River. Over the past few years, the locus of activity has quietly shifted to the Bethel area, with Bethel Woods and the string of new restaurants on Kauneonga Lake.

That may be about to change. The Japanese Heritage Foundation has announced plans to revive the Sho Fu Den, a replica of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, Japan that was brought to the site in Forestburgh after the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. The palace and gardens will be the centerpiece of a 195 room garden inn and spa with a Japanese theme.

But that's nothing compared to the plans by Double Diamond Resorts for a 2,200 acre site off of St. Joseph's and Cold Springs Road. Double Diamond (www.ddresorts.com) is a developer of upscale golf communities, with 4 communities in Texas and one in Pennsylvania. Double Diamond closed on the property in late August or early September, and has been in discussions with the Town of Forestburgh regarding its plans.

Both Sho Fu Den and a Double Diamond community are likely a few years off, but are both exciting projects. And the Drive and Race Club, the "race car country club" planned for the old Monticello Airport (north of Lake Joseph and not far from these 2 Forestburgh projects) is well off the planning boards with a scheduled opening sometime in 2008. This could shift the locus of excitement in the county to the band between Route 42 and Cold Spring Road south of Monticello.

Comments

[Chuck]

There are a lot of small entreprenuerial projects - Kauenaga Lake business strip, the Kuebler buildings in Youngsville, the Santos building in Narrowsburg, the Drive and Race Club, the new condos in Monticello, and dozens more - as well as a lot of large projects - Double Diamond, Bethel Woods, the Concord (?), Chapin/Kenoza/Highlands/Bethel Farms.

All this bodes well for the County, as both the supply and demand the county needs is incubating simultaneously - as opposed to the constipated position of the last few years where the hotels won't come because there isn't enough people, and the people won't come because there isn't enough infrastructure or amenities.

If this delicate, mutually-dependent growth continues with macro and micro progress, Sullivan will continue it's climb out of the doldrums that we have been watching for the past 6 years.

[Tony Ritter]

Chuck,
Lodging? Let's be honest.

They're still very few hotels - forget hotels ...motels - to support a year 'round crowd - let alone a summer crowd.

You've got a Best Western and EconoLodge in Monticello, another small motel in Liberty and in Rock Hill.

Calling Conde Nast Traveller?

Uh...No. Not yet.

None of these places are in a location that most vacationers would find appealing - i.e.; close to a lake or a to a river - or with long range views - that make our county so special - and different from the other counties close to the city.

They're fairly small and are across the street from a Burger King or down the road from an Exxon station off a highway!

Wonderful if your're on your way *to* someplace - like the Finger Lakes, Adriondacks or the Saint Lawrence - not so great if this is your destination. There's a difference.

The best news would be if Double Diamond Resort in Forestburgh and the revised Concord breaks would finally break ground - but as you know, we've been waiting for that for a long, long time.

It would be better to have a developer focus on the inherent attributes of our county - such as challenging golf courses that rival courses in Florida or California - or lakes and rivers for fishing and canoeing that match those in Maine or Montana - and build around that attraction - than the other way around.

I look forward to that day.

By the way, here's a graph from the New York Times that you may find of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/10/12/nyregion/20071012_SUBPRIME_GRAPHIC.html#

Until we get out of these doldrums - which might not shake out until the second half of 2008 - I think we'll be stuck in a wait and see attitude due to the economic mess that many in the real estate industry are now in.

In fact, as a builder, you might be able to fetch some of these properties when they hit the market for renovation - or a cosmetic facelift - possibly for fifty to seventy cents on the dollar - next spring when the banks and mortgage companies begin to unload their inventory of foreclosed properties.

There's a lot of information in that chart from The Times.

Have a great weekend,
Tony Ritter
in Narrowsburg, NY
www.delawareriverfishing.com

[Chuck]

Most of them will need to be 70% on the dollar if they were bought in the last 3 years when non-value properties rose in price as quickly as solid investments. The fundamental value of everything sold over $350k in Sullivan County over the past 3 years will be open to reexamination, with certainly some winners, but as certainly some losers too.

[srm]

"Until we get out of these doldrums - which might not shake out until the second half of 2008..."

Tony,

Would you please identify those SPECIFICS that will reverse the "doldrums."