Main Street brings New Urbanism to New York State

A new four-block Main Street crosses US Route 44 about two miles east of Poughkeepsie, New York. Eastdale Village is a first-of-its-kind development in Upstate New York, which boasts some of the nation’s best old urbanism, but little New Urbanism. 

The development required give-and-take with the state DOT and earned the Design Excellence Urban Design Award from the Urban Guild this year. The award went to Union Studio and Kirchhoff Companies, which designed and built the development, which locals call “the second happiest place on Earth.” People in Upstate New York are still unused to New Urbanism, so they liken it to Disney. “It’s tongue in cheek. Disney World is the happiest; we are the second happiest,” says Giovanni Palladino, director of planning and design for the Kirchhoff Companies based in Eastdale Village.

The village really is happy. “We created a place where people come to be part of something,” Palladino says. The main street is a destination where people come to sit outdoors and socialize or listen to live music. A farmer’s market is held twice a month. There are holiday celebrations. A Halloween event drew such large crowds, 3,000-4,000 people, that they had to stop hosting it. “People are craving that kind of experience in our area. College students like to hang out here.” (The City has several colleges). At the north end of the main street, a small square with a pavilion draws moms with babies and teenagers after school, he says.

Eastdale Village has 120,000 square feet of retail, restaurants, and offices, with residential above first-floor commercial. More than 400 apartments have been built in residential buildings near the main street. The project blends multiple uses in a way that nurtures local businesses and fosters community engagement, Palladino says. The rentals attract a diverse population that supports the restaurants. “I think it feels really good, we ended up with 15-foot sidewalks,” he says. “Every restaurant has tables. We have tree-lined streets, parallel parking, and market lighting that crosses the street from building to building. You know you have arrived at Eastdale.”

The design pushed boundaries in a few ways—one was crossing the two-lane highway, which required cooperation and compromise with the DOT. The intersection was improved with bulbouts and crosswalks, and the state allowed on-street parking to extend about a block from the intersection in both directions, on both sides. US Route 44 has no on-street parking in the region, even in the city. DOT insisted that the on-street parking be separated by one car length (with markings), so that cars could quickly pull in and out. 

This highway has been the subject of commercial strip development since the 1950s.

Another unusual aspect is that businesses own their buildings. Instead of leasing retail space, business owners purchase fee-simple lots and build their shops with living spaces above. This innovative approach provides supplemental income and offsets mortgage costs with rent from upper-level apartments. This development also offers small incubator cottages that provide a low barrier to entry for start-ups, lining one side of the small green.

“They have skin in the game,” Palladino says of the business owners. “It helps them build wealth. You see them decorating for the holidays, sweeping out front. They are so vested in what we are doing.”

The small buildings give the main street a fine grain of development, and the architecture and construction are carefully done, which impressed the Urban Guild jury. That’s a challenge to pull off in an area with little New Urbanism. Palladino used to work for Leyland Alliance, a new urbanist firm that has done projects up and down the East Coast, especially in the Southeast. Leyland built a small residential neighborhood called Warwick Grove in Warwick, New York, about 50 miles from Poughkeepsie. He brought in some of the skilled craftsmen from the Leyland projects and always focusing on education—like explaining the reasoning behind the details. That ensures the construction workers are personally invested in getting the details, which are important to the sense of place. Even if visitors do not know how a column should meet a beam, or about eave and window details, the careful design creates a sense of authenticity that contributes to enjoyment of Eastdale. 

“The streets, sidewalks and greens of Eastdale Village are continually humming with the activity of locals and visitors who travel from throughout the Hudson Bay region to dine, shop and enjoy the village’s lively atmosphere,” he says.

Note: I was on the 2024 Urban Guild Awards jury, along with Sara Bega of Bega Design Studio, Rock Bell, East Beach Development, and Andrew Von Maur, a design consultant and professor at Andrews University.