The "R" is for Rensselaer, not Realtor
Last April, the RPI administration announced their purchase of Proctor's Theater in downtown Troy, citing "the need for additional specialty hotel facilities in the region."
Now, as the Troy city government looks to renovate the site and turn it into the new city hall, the Troy Record coverage makes mention of the fact that numerous consultants have told RPI the site could not be used as a hotel. Says Troy mayor Harry Tutunjian in the Record:
One final consideration: Proctor's has a 3,200 seat auditorium, which has been one of the selling points of the eMPA Center (current pricetag now exceeding $140 million). Just think, with a little more adequate planning, we could have had the same thing just a bit further down the hill for a fraction of the cost.
This may be a good time to start reconsidering The Rensselaer Plan--particularly the part that has Rensselaer executing it.
Now, as the Troy city government looks to renovate the site and turn it into the new city hall, the Troy Record coverage makes mention of the fact that numerous consultants have told RPI the site could not be used as a hotel. Says Troy mayor Harry Tutunjian in the Record:
"After a year, they've been unable to find a developer to make it into a hotel that is sustainable and financially worthwhile."The city is now preparing to save Dr. Jackson and the other Donald Trump wannabes of the High Command by taking the property off their hands. Personally, I'd like to see Mayor Tutunjian walk into the negotiations and lay a dollar bill on the table as his opening bid, seeing as there's not exactly a mob on 4th street of developers fighting to get their hands on the property.
One final consideration: Proctor's has a 3,200 seat auditorium, which has been one of the selling points of the eMPA Center (current pricetag now exceeding $140 million). Just think, with a little more adequate planning, we could have had the same thing just a bit further down the hill for a fraction of the cost.
This may be a good time to start reconsidering The Rensselaer Plan--particularly the part that has Rensselaer executing it.
posted by Bernstein at 11:06 PM
25 Comments:
RPI wasting money on something it doesn't need and can't use? Unheard of!
you seem to have a tendency to view things in a short-sighted and narrow way. Also, whats the problem with people trying to improve rpi and troy?
1) Not all 3,200 seat theatres are the same
2) RPI paid VERY VERY little for the property, less than you will pay in tuition. I say, noble effort, and better them trying to do it than the previous owner's who were sitting on it doing nothing.
3) The city is not bailing RPI out. They are lucky, in fact, that RPI bought it because another developer might not have given such a good deal. I assume RPI will be giving them proctors at the price paid, because anything else would generate "badwill" with the city and senator bruno. The city buying proctors is a step in improving the city overall. Now the city can use the auditorium to have council meetings and other things. In addition, a developer can come and build a nice hotel where city hall now stands, with a marina. A marina would although the weekend boating types to add Troy as a destination for hudson river excursions. This is a revenue generator for other river cities, but unfortunately Troy's current marina has room for very few boats and virtually no services.
raoul - source? tip bernstein seems to have his/hers, making his argument a little bit stronger.
For Raoul, a source isn't required. His positions are right. Bernstein's source is Joe Bruno, a noted blowhard, and Harry Tutunijian, another windbag.
It's obvious Bernstein isn't a native Troy-let. The downtown area has been undergoing a revival in the last two years; bad houses and buildings are being bought up cheaply, fixed up and sold for double the paid price. It's a lucrative business and one designed to make downtown better.
Proctor's has long been the tragedy of Troy. It's a beautiful place along the lines of the Music Hall, and deserves a place like RPI buying it.
On a utility note: RPI architecture or engineering students could practice on this building. Might be very useful for these students to get out of the abstract and theoretical stuff to get real-world experience.
I'm sorry - you ALWAYS need sources. RPI is a school, not a realator. The sad fact of the matter is that the only thing in Troy that needs a nice hotel is RPI, but the administration should have known better than to buy a building that isn't even a good potential hotel site and then try to sucker some company into starting a hotel just for them.
There's nothing wrong with trying to improve things - the problem is wasting money doing a bad job of it.
As much as eMPAC costs way too much and is too far away from students, I have to say that Proctors would have been worse due to lack of facilities and even greater distance.
They shouldn't automatically sell it for the price they got it for though, I say get as much from the city as they can given that it's fairly worthless.
When you buy something for a certain purpose and then you're unable to do anything with it and then someone is nice enough to buy it from you ARE essentially get bailed out of a stupid investment.
Sources are for serious journalists. Our posts are more amateur op-ed pieces than anything else. Admittedly, op-ed is supposed to be held to the same standards, but where are the errors in our posts? Tutunijian and Bruno are career politicians and blowhards - look at the Bruno family's involvement with shady business deals, prominently featured in the Times Union. I'd take you more seriously, big o, if you had spelt realtor correctly.
RPI's doing a good thing in trying to further integrate the campus with the downtown. A big portion of the negative gossip surrounding RPI targets the lack of a diverse day and night life close by the main campus. The bars are all in Albany, although there are very good restaurants in Troy.
When more businesses and organizations move into downtown, others will become interested and move in. RPI's helping to spur on the movement - adding to the rolling ball of development and cleaning up. this will likely end up helping the entire city. Also, the hotel could be used as a training ground for hoteliers, like at Cornell, or architects, engineers, artisans. This could only add to RPI's attempt to become a top 20 school.
The walk from RPI to downtown is short; there's even a newly restored Approach, made of beautiful stone and possessing a great view, for it. I can walk from Tibbits Ave to River St in 25 minutes or slightly less on a hot day with a backpack. Plus there's CDTA buses that go back and forth.
Maybe the reason RPI isn't in the top 20 is because we're one of the few schools at the PhD level confined to primarily giving out degrees in science/math/engineering. Schools like Cornell offer many other programs and thus have more applicants (and a lower acceptance rate) because of the broader scope of degrees offered. Just a thought.
And I'd take you more seriously if you didn't judge people by the way they spell while quickly typing comments on an online blog that they don't have time to proofread and can't edit.
That's just it - RPI isn't helping. Buying a theatre and then trying to get it developed as a hotel when the building is all wrong for it isn't helpful. In fact, it's downright embarassing.
The approach is ridiculous. I'm from Detroit where we have roads that aren't one-way, I don't need hundreds of stairs when I can drive to a better city faster than I can walk or wait for a shuttle that never shows up on time.
I spent my entire spring break freshman year exploring Troy on foot. There are some good places to eat, but nothing really mind blowing. Other than that the place is a dump. At night, I wouldn't recommend several areas of Troy for your average RPI student.
RPI is a technical school. The fact that it has little or no programs in many non-technical disciplines may affect its overall ranking, but what about individual programs? You're not going to tell me that the Computer Science department isn't highly ranked because we don't have a big Arts Department are you? The fact of the matter is that with a few exceptions RPI degrees are only prestigious in cost, not where it counts - in the eyes of employers.
If RPI wants to change, it needs to work on the programs it already has first. Expanding to a broader focus would be nice, but not at the cost of what we have.
I was referring to overall rankings, but yes, RPI does need to focus more on it's programs and the students than on the capital campaign and fancy buildings. It's the students that make the school, not the school that makes the students.
I usually don't weigh in on these things but I feel I have something worth adding. The administration is not that far off when it focuses on the capital campaign ; the capital campaign is necessary to continue to attract a high caliber of students and to make student life of the highest quality. Money from the capital campaign will go straight into residence hall upgrades and athletic improvements. I know that a very large portion of the money is going into or has gone into buildings and research, but it is a start.
In addition, the capital campaign is raising money for facilities where more and better graduate research can occur. With more and better gradute research, RPI can receive more federal and private funding to pay for better professors and more teaching assistants, as well as (slightly) offset the cost of tuition.
We don't need better students - we need better academic programs and facilities. Not performing arts centers, not hotels, and certainly not fresh coats of paint glorified as residence hall renovations.
Since when did building shiny new buildings and kissing politicians become more important that standing up for student's rights and keeping higher education affordable?
I understand what you mean; it isn't new buildings that we need, it's better facilities in the same buildings.
In many cases - yes. There are space problems, but unfortunately the buildings we're putting up aren't solving them anyway.
Bernstein isn't living up to his name. The original would never jump around so much and would have followed up on high-interest stories like this one. Hope he gets this blatant hint.
You know that the college is trying to "diversify" itself, right? It's even gone as far as to try and stop official usage of the acronym RPI and shove Renesselaer down our throats. Hence, the weakening interest in fully upgrading the sciences and engineering which are already pretty well done.
I personally like that idea. I've had enough of seeing pale, white, frisbee-playing dorks around the campus. I live next to a frat, and know that the parties have been getting worse and worse these last few years ('95 was the high point); friends of mine who go to RPI get very discontent with the social life and lack of good things to do in the area.
A strong downtown will bring a higher caliber of students and more $$$ to RPI.
(On a side note, it is entirely possible to proofread your post here beforehand)
[On a side note, I really don't care. When you start paying me for my blog comments I'll start spending my time professionally proofreading them.]
RPI's efforts to get rid of their own acronym are laughable. And please don't say "the college" because technically that could include me and thousands of other students, faculty, and administrators who either don't care or are directly opposed to the change.
RPI can become a world-class well-diversified institute, that would be awesome. But the best way to start is not pissing off alumni, faculty, and students by changing the name or wasting large amounts of money.
RPI has a few high-ranked science and engineering degree programs, but overall we're nowhere near the tier one science and engineering school that RPI advertises itself as. Don't get me wrong there are some very positive and unique things about/going on at RPI, but there's a lot of room for improvement.
If RPI wants to enhance/create their humanities and other programs they need to get the students, the faculty, and the facilities to do so. Not just change the name of the school and build an extremely expensive auditorium on the far end of campus.
The reason the parties suck isn’t RPI, it’s Troy. The sad fact of the matter is that you can’t get a good party going at an RPI frat without alcohol, and the overzealous Troy police have been arresting fraternity presidents right and left which in turn gets fraternities in big trouble and afraid to let anyone into their parties. Freshmen don’t get cars, so they can’t even drive to Albany to clubs or anything. No one can really party in the dorms because of pricks who enforce “quiet hours.” So what’s left? A few parties in non-frats in Troy, but even there they’ve got to be really careful about the anal Troy noise laws.
The social life at RPI (not counting the remaining good frat parties) reflects the social life in Troy, only a little bit worse because there are a disproportionate number of anti-social students at RPI.
It is not RPI’s financial responsibility to fix Troy’s problems and the things we’re doing right now aren’t solving anything anyway.
What hint am I supposed to be getting? Yes, I do hear a pile of rumors and yes, I'm never one to ignore intriguing speculation, but if I haven't posted more on the story, it's because I haven't been able to pin it down. This can be due to a shortage of facts, not having enough time, or just a lack of interest on my part. If there's something you really, *really* want to see followed up on, email me at tipbernstein@yahoo.com.
Damn I've been missing out on all the fun. I'll start with some facts that people seem to forget way to often.
1) The Arts Department is in fact the highest rated department in the school
2) The entrepreneurship program is ranked 8th on one of those thingies, us news i think. but thats not the whole lally school which is more like 48th...
so between those two departments, there is this trend towards "creativity." you may have heard of the book called "The Rise of the Creative Class." This books main premise is that "creative workers" and "knowledge workers" no longer care about the quality of their job or their pay, they care about the quality of their life, and therefore choose where to live based on that. So, improving the nightlife in troy has the effect of improving the students quality of life which in turn improves the quality of students (cause students who can afford to _choose_ where to go are usually the better students anyway).
facilities are, of course, important, but there is no "do this, get this" when it comes to funding schools. i'm not sure who actually said that politics dont play a role in this stuff, i think the exact quote was "since when do politics play a role." well, they have played a role since roughly egypt, but probably going back to more like 9000 BC. of course, they didnt have colleges then, but i'd like an example of something that relates to multi hundreds of millions of dollars grants, super-large corporations, innovation and potentially huge revenue generating ideas, and one of the largest sources of revenue for surrounding cities that does NOT have to do with politics.
another thing that i dont see coming out here is that EMPAC was a requirement (as in, you have to do this) of the GIFT (as in free money) that paid for it. that means, to put it very simply
you can have this money ($440 million or whatever it was)
IF
you build this building
using this money
clear? so, there are no other options for empac, it was a requirement of the GIFT (as in free money).
so in effect, by complaining that rpi should not be building this building, you are essentially saying they should not have taken this free money to build it. possibly even implying that empac will not help (see my other comments on the specific empac thread as to how empac will help you 1) get a job and 2) get more moeny at the job and 3) bring better people to troy).
as to sources, what makes you think i dont have sources? you can listen to me or not, but i'm not compromising my position here to tell you where i get my information. i may not be a serious journalist but i take information and its sources seriously.
So, to sum up, RPI already has a high ranked arts department, the highest ranked in the school in fact. it already has the faculty, in fact, one of the professors received the highest award/grant ever at RPI, the gugenheim fellowship (for $1 million i think...). i know its not very clear to everyone what empac will be doing, but it will not have classrooms, at least not at first. you might compare it to a research lab, with crazy facilities, but not exclusively for the humanities, all aspects of rpi will be represented.
i think that empac is not for enhancing (again, creating is not the right word being that it has an arts program ranked higher than any of the science/engineering programs) the humanities department of rpi, its for enhancing the university itself. the prestige, the quality of life, and, yes, the name. empac will allow rpi to host presidental debates. wouldnt it be nice to go into a job interview the day after a debate hosted at rpi, and have the interviewer notice that you went to rpi? do you think that would help your chances at the job, ceteris parabis?
i agree there is much room for improvement, but i think this comes from the lack of enthusiasm of tenured professors. address the teachers, and, i hate to say this, but i think it will "trickle down" to the students. it has always been the teachers who get me the most excited about rpi, or the most uninterested. also the facilities, we really have some kick-ass equipment for use by the students, i mean, the arts department alone has like 50 DV cameras that you can take out if you take a class. i dont know much about the other departments, but two words: robots & lasers. hehe. joking.
as for troy, all i have to say is do something about it. you want to have a party and are worried about the cops? well, dont break the noise violation laws. protest the laws. can you have a party without violating that law? or is the important question, can you have a party with alcohol without a bunch of drunk idiots running around in the street, especially when you mention the word "frat."
i mean, i know you can, cause i used to and still do it all the time. as do my friends.
i know another way to do it. start a music series at an ailing troy bar. tell them its 21+ and simply bring in more money than they would make otherwise. is it legal? well you're not breaking any laws, and if they end up serving under 21 people, i guess that is against the law, but watch how rpi kids spending tons of money will make them accept those faded jersey ids.... the trick is finding a way to get the people out. if all it takes is a location, then that should solve your problem real quick.
We have one degree program, Electronic Arts, which is highly ranked but this is only possible due to its extremely small size. The Arts Department as a whole has extremely limited course offerings, some of the worst facilities on campus, and the undergraduate could benefit infinitely more from money invested in equipment, facilities, and expansion in number of students, course offerings, and other degree programs than it will from EMPAC.
EMPAC will in no way increase the quality of life for most students - many student organizations have flatly refused to utilize its facilities when they become available due to its inconveinent location and architectural eccentricity.
I'm not sure where you're getting some of your notions, but if you take a survey I think you'll find that students and workers care about the quality of their job, the amount of pay, and the quality of their life. Not just one or two. Your logic might apply to some artists, but it hardly holds for entrepreneurs or most other fields.
Regardless of where the money for EMPAC is coming from, I'm talking about school priorities and accomplishments. When the administration holds up really expensive poorly located largely unimportant buildings as its main accomplishment towards improving RPI it really makes me sick. Also, EMPAC is likely to suck up RPI money for years and years to come, I don't see it ever becoming profitable. RPI has a limited amount of space to build on, and they're wasting it along with millions of dollars on the wrong building.
EMPAC might improve the night life at RPI if they have really cool performances or something that students can get into for free (assuming anyone is willing to walk up or down to it) but if you just assume that its existence is going to revitalize Troy's night life you're crazy, if thousands of bored college students hasn't done anything for Troy then neither will a performing arts center on campus. If anything, it may very well cause parking problems if the school's parking garage is not sufficient for special events.
As usual this whole thing looks really good on paper and will get RPI in a few headlines, but in the end it doesn't increase the quality of education or lower costs for students.
I admit that coming up with a plan for improving Troy is beyond my realm of knowledge. It really is one of the only communities so stagnant that pizza place owners are the only people to realize just how profitable being next to a college campus can be. I heard the mayor BRAG about how no one could find a house in his community, that right there tells you there's something wrong with the attitude in Troy. Growth - both residential and commercial - is the real thing we should be striving for. Not high housing costs...
Nobody in Troy seems interested in making the city anything but a social wasteland. The laws and the citizens simply do not favor parties or night life or any kind. Fraternities are particularly discriminated against. The problem isn't having fun with your friends, it's having fun with anyone else. Parties or social events of any size are difficult because of a lack of facilities, ridiculous laws, hateful citizens, and scrutiny by law enforcement. Unfortunately in today's legal world the school can only do so much to try to solve this problem itself, often leading to many lame school sponsored events.
If only RPI had been built in Albany...
hmm... well i disagree with much of what you said, but not enough to really dispute it. you may good points that i think much of the student will agree with. i will just say a few things in response.
1) the arts department, while being underfunded, has lots of available facilities. i cant think of one thing an artist/designer/musician/video artist might want that the arts department doesnt supply for them. although its true that most students wait until the last minute to utilize the equipment to complete work for their projects, and this creates a shortage of equipment, there is still tons available. i was not an arts student but i took a lot of classes there and worked as an undergrad work study. when you compare the facilities I had with the facilities the arts department has, its like working in one of the best studios you can find and not having any actual work to do. i produced videos, high quality audio, and tons of digital image prints. it was great! not being in school anymore and having to actually pay for these things has really shown me how lucky i was to have access to that stuff.
2) the location of empac. sooooo, how is this inconvenient? if you live downtown, its the first thing up the hill. if you live on campus, its right next to the library. i dont get how this is inconvenient, unless you dont go to the library cause its inconvenient.
3) the value it will generate. so, the difference here is that you are thinking in cause/effect and i am thinking more of the butterfly that creates a storm on the other side of the world. when you look at the simple relationships of cause and effect, you dont get the whole picture. empac is not intended to make a profit, does this mean it wont generate money for the school?? no, it does not. however, the simple fact of "it," or the simple fact of an "event," will not generate a profit. however, say they get the presidential debates of 2008 or whenever. how do you think that will affect alumni contributions? perhaps a good study of this would be to compare the level of press for rpi and the level of contributions for any given month. i bet you could find a significant correlation there. THAT is what i'm referring to. i'm referring to you having a better chance at a job because the other guy wasnt on the news last week. i'm referring to the other people who will feel there is less risk to invest in troy because rpi just invested so much. this is what will improve the quality of life.
things arent always cause and effect. look at the current us govt. administration, they are masters at doing one thing to get another effect. in the military they call it "effects oriented operations" or something. one example is weapons of mass destruction in iraq to take it over (exactly as described in the american enterprise institutes analysis of the future threats to the us that came out in late 1999 or 2000). so i'm not trying to get political, just use an obvious example that anyone can understand. perhaps another example is giving things away for free, like cigarette companies who go to bars and give out free cigs. you clearly lose money on that, right?? so why do they do it? oh, because they want to create "goodwill" with the customers and perhaps get them to buy their brand next time. its not just cigs, i'm sure you can think of many other examples.
so i realize you say you are not qualified to make a plan to improve rpi/troy, but really you cant say i'm wrong because i see some of the more long term effects of this thing. just think about it in terms of long term effects of "getting the ball rolling." lots of times it doesnt matter what specific thing you do first if you create a new "environment" that doesnt have the same dynamics as the old. like, creating an environment where developers perceive less risk to invest in troy. that does, in fact, help students quality of life. trust me.
if rpi was built in albany, we would all be f-ed. also, there is a really big "blue-collar" vibe going on in troy, and i spend nights thinking about how to change this, but i totally agree. it sucks.
I'm not denying the arts department has equipment, but if you compare it to other arts departments, or even Electronic Arts programs that are lower ranked, we have much less equipment in much worse condition. There's so much room for improvement, it's really the students and faculty (and small size) that are keeping it so awesome. I wish the school was there to expand and back it up to a full size program with more non-electronic arts offerings.
I think you would be shocked at the number of students who have never even been in the library. This is the digital age my friend... The library is not well located either, but that's neither here nor there. A key difference is that the library is often utilized between or directly after classes, when students are already on the academic campus. Performing arts centers tend to be evening/weekend affairs, meaning students living in the dorms or off campus have a very very long walk ahead of them. If you could provide an example of a less conveinent location (besides another city) I'd be surprised. The only way to spin it is the way RPI has, as a symbolic bridge between RPI and Troy. But the fact remains it's far away from many of the people that might attend its performances. The Playhouse, for example, is an infinitely better location. No doubt one of the reasons the members of the Players I've talked to are less than enthusiastic about EMPAC.
I disagree with your logic. RPI will no doubt get press from EMPAC, but it's going to be a specific kind of press. You claim it will benefit me, but that's like saying RPI's engineering accomplishments benefit the other cirriculums when in fact it's quite the opposite. If anything the fact that RPI is well known for engineering hurts its other programs, internally and externally. That's one reason there's a push for expansion and "Rensselaer" (barf). As soon as the few people who know what RPI is find out I'm not an engineer they're immediately dissapointed. We need to broaden our degree offerings and increase quality, not build multi-million dollar buildings that just benefit one small program and give us a far away place to hold speeches.
RPI investing in Troy will have no effect on others. RPI is about as far from an independent investor as you can get - they're stuck in Troy whether they like it or not. I doubt most investors/developers would fall for that one. If they invest in Troy (which would be nice) it's not going to be because of RPI unless we waste money bribing them.
I was alright with Iazeta's post until the Harriet Tubman thing. That event was audacious and certainly eventful, but never had any true historical reverbrations like John Brown at Harper's Ferry or something similar.
I work in a bookstore in downtown Troy. It opened in November as a satellite of the Book House in Stuyvesant Plaza (Albany), and is doing alright. However, the people that stop by truly surprise me. We get many regular visitors from nearby offices during lunch hours, parents and kids looking for summer reading list books but most importantly we get young African-American men and women who are interested in reading. This has spurred the creation of small but decent black lit and fiction sections.
I can walk down the street to the Commissary and eat the amazing lunches they make over there. And their kids can walk down to our store and buy books or just hang if they want. It ain't that blue-collar anymore, but I don't know if the tipping point has been reached yet.
Also, is the correct definition of growth suburban sprawl with McMansions and cookie cutter particle board houses? NYET! It is the repurposing and rehabilitation of existing buildings and structures for a new world and populace. RPI is doing the right thing.
I'm at work and have a project so i'll be brief.
1) rpi students that cant walk from the dorm to the library need more exercise. perhaps try studying abroad to get used to long walks, as the rest of the world actually uses their feet as transportation. perhaps thats why americans are chubbier on average? anyway, its really not that far. it takes less than 10 minutes and doesnt even compare to having to walk up the approach from downtown. of course, rpi should have a shuttle going to all of these places....
2) outside investors are being spurred on by rpi. rpi purchased land between congress and ferry (right before it combines to be two lanes if you are coming from downtown.) they waited until they found developers willing to develop and made it happen. although rpi is in fact, "in troy," they do not have to invest in troy. doing so, along with troy's own growth, creates the perception of lower risk. here are some articles about that:
http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2005/01/31/daily32.html
The city partnered with RPI, the Troy Housing Authority and Rensselaer County to review three proposals from local developers. Omni Development Co. Inc. and the United Group of Cos. Inc., both of Albany, and the Howard Group of Colonie submitted project proposals ranging from $60 million to $160 million in value. The proposals included housing, retail, dining, parking and office space.
http://www.poly.rpi.edu/index.php3?IssueID=131
RPI helps city makeover
In one of the largest collaborations between RPI and Troy in recent years, RPI, the city of Troy, and the Rensselaer Housing Authority have collaborated in buying adjoining land in the Congress Street and Ferry Street corridor.
Harry Tutunjian, Troy’s mayor, has already begun evaluating developer plans, ranging from $60-100 million, though who will pay for the development of the 14 acres into housing, shops, and restaurants has yet to be determined.
A realignment of Congress and Ferry streets is almost certain during the course of the development, as Troy has an $11 million federal transportation grant for such a project.
One project proposal seeks to closely link the RPI campus with Troy by erecting a mix of married and graduate housing along with retail and office space. Rensselaer County officials are optimistic that the project will increase the city and county’s tax base, as well as create many new jobs.
i saw them rehearsing for their empac360 event around midnight last night. it was crazy, a string quartet and dancers hanging from the construction site. if anyone is doubting what empac is gonna do for rpi, go to this. at least for your own personal enjoyment. amazzzzing.
yeah, amazing if you're sufficiently disconnected from reality to ignore what's being sacrificed with regards to REAL programming for this. ass.
if i'm disconnected from reality, how can i be ignoring it? please enlighten me since i obviously cant enlighten myself.
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