The property at 38 Post Road in Kingston, N.Y. (City of Kingston photo)
KINGSTON, N.Y. — The city’s Common Council unanimously approved at its March meeting the sale of a vacant city-owned property at 38 Post St. to a Hurley-based artist for use as a gallery for pop-up shows and storage space for her large sculptures.
The 8-0 vote clears the way for the city to sell the barnlike 1,326-square-foot warehouse that’s been vacant since 2012 for $10,000 to visual artist Jean Shin and her husband, restoration architect Brian Ripal. Alderwoman Jeanne Edwards, D-Ward 4, was absent.
“This is a wonderful use of this space,” Alderman Robert Dennison said.
A Hurley resident, Shin has done a number of large-scale public artworks. They include works at the Olana State Historic Site in Greenport in Columbia County, at one of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s stations on the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan, and at Storm King Art Center in Orange County.
Shin said during a presentation at a Common Council Finance Committee meeting in February that she was looking for a place with a vibrant arts scene to host special events and store her artwork. Kingston fit the bill, she added.
Shin acknowledged the couple face many hurdles to getting the structure with its wooden barrel vault ceiling ready to use. Environmental remediation needs to be done at the building, which was once part of a dry-cleaning operation, she added.
Shin and Ripal estimate it will cost them $212,700 for an initial renovation to prepare the building to host special events on one floor and storage on the other. Ripal said they plan to use the main level with the barrel-vaulted ceiling for events and the basement level for storage space.
Shin told lawmakers cleaning and restoring this site and building fits in with her artwork, which often has an environmental focus.
Bartek Starodaj, the city’s director of housing initiatives, noted the site’s environmental issues make it a less-than-ideal place to build housing. Ripal said the contamination includes the remediation of tetrachloroethene also known as PERC, a hazardous chemical that was dumped at the site when the building served as a boiler room for a dry cleaning operation on Broadway known as Kingston Laundry.
Common Council Majority Leader Reynolds Scott-Childress said Tuesday, March 5, the high expense of cleaning up the site factored into the city offering it to the couple for $10,000.
Once the remediation is done, Shin plans to open the building on select weekends that draw large amounts of pedestrian traffic to the Rondout Area like Art Walk Kingston and the O+ Festival. She emphasized it would not be a permanent gallery.
Shin said these events would place a special emphasis on women artists, artists of color, students from area colleges and universities like SUNY New Paltz and Bard College as well as artists focusing on environmental issues.
Shin and Ripal were chosen as the strongest candidates to purchase the property after a Request for Proposal process, Starodaj said at the February meeting.
Shin said they first learned about the property after seeing an ad for a Request for Proposals in the Freeman.
