Waynesword, into March 08
Altitude, Latitude, & Attitude
Early March:
I suppose that if I don’t want to be stuck in Mid-Winter mode in cyberspace anymore, I’d better commence with my next piece. Up on the western plateau of Middle Grove, however, it still looks like winter as I write this, with a snow cover still a foot or two thick, and snowbanks along the road still four feet high, with more snow potentially aiming this way soon. It’s been coming in regular doses since November this season, and, early in March, shows no signs of easin’.
As I drove my daughter to grade school one day, she was asking me why we had so much more snow than there was in Troy, where her brother goes to school. I went into a long-winded story of how we live at a higher elevation than other places down in the river valleys of the Capital District, and how it was colder and snowier at higher elevations…. Then she interrupted—“But Daddy I thought heat rises…?”
Got me there. Why is colder air typically higher up in the hills, on the ridges? This idea defies 4th grade physics, but from experience I know that it’s true.
So I started again, “Well, we’re also North of Albany and Troy by quite a bit, so we’re always a bit colder up here as well… 20 or 30 miles’ difference is enough for a slight change in climate…”
Changes in Latitude; Changes in Altitude… I’m singing, though Jimmy Buffett lives a long damn way from here. It was 61 degrees, I heard, in NYC a few days ago, and in the low 60’s in Tampa Bay when my sister-in-law called this morning. This seems to connote that there is a bigger difference in temperature from Saratoga County to New York City, than from NYC to Florida. I suppose that’s a fluke of the season, but is faint consolation as we await a procrastinating spring once again. Looking at the snow cover, it’s hard to believe that Trout Fishing season and Major League Baseball are both less than a month away. But I’ve seen this syndrome repeat for over four decades of living in upstate NY, so I know it’s true.
I also know that sometimes people’s spirits (i.e. attitude) can bottom out during the seemingly interminable wait for the actual arrival of Spring. We hardcore northerners have to take precautions against depression as we watch the landscape slowly evolve from white to grey, to muddy brown, to…eventually…green again. We know it will happen, but never quick enough.
The funny thing is, I cover a lot of ground in the Capital District, and there are a lot of places south and east of where I live where the ground is already bare and soaking up sun and rain, while we wait for the snowpack to melt up here. It’s good to know spring is not far away-in terms of distance if not time.
Real Estate & the Advent of the Tech Park….
In a “normal” market, the spring surge would be underway again, but the jittery national news combined with persistent winter seems to be delaying the pick-up. There are some sales, there are steadily more and more listings, but the market seems to be lacking excitement at this point. Buyers are extremely selective and can afford to be. New listings either sell right away, or are going to sit for a long time. When running searches for people I am seeing the same listings popping up on these menus of what’s available, over and over again. There is a lot of stale inventory out there, and the owners of those stale listings must be very frustrated by now, but still seem to be stubborn about lowering their prices in a timely manner.
One reason locals seem to hold out hope that they will eventually get “top dollar” for their property is that the local economy seems as if it’s definitely gearing up toward the imminent creation of AMD’s Chip Fab Plant in the Luther Forest Technology Park. This winter has seen the onset of road-building work between Exits 11 & 12 of The Northway (that’s I-87 for you non-locals reading this)—an arterial connection that has now been dubbed “The Round Lake By-Pass.” This major engineering project will be the conduit for truck-&-construction traffic to and from the new Industrial site over near the Malta/Stillwater Town lines. Since Exit 11’s eastern exit now compels people to drive through the sleepy hamlet of Round Lake to gain access to Route 9 north to Luther Forest, the new road is creating the channel to divert that traffic north of the densely- built little village. This will both speed up the traffic toward the (potential) AMD site, and appease the residents who understandably don’t want to be bombarded with non-stop truck traffic forever after. As it is, the sound of road construction and, later, downshifting truck traffic, will be echoing to the north side of Round Lake for quite a while to come from this point on.
“IF YOU BUILD IT…
THEY WILL COME”…
BUT WHO’S PAYING FOR IT??
My first thought when I noticed the road-creation work underway was exactly that—who’s paying for it?? I don’t claim to be,nor intend to be, nor have time to be, an investigative reporter…but I got some interesting reactions a while back when I spoke to a civil engineer whose company was involved with the planning and creation of that hastily-carved out highway. He was sworn to secrecy at the time and could not tell me anything about who was behind it. I asked: Is it a New York State initiative?? Could not tell me. Is it Saratoga County money being spent?? His lips were commendably sealed. Is there private money behind all this?? And if so, whose?? Neither the engineer I was talking to, nor anyone else I cornered a couple of months ago with the question, seems to yield a clue.
Yet every day this winter, no matter what the weather, there were crews out there, running bulldozers, earth-movers, cranes, and gravel-bed trucks to lay out the new 4-lane (?) by-pass as a high-speed swath over to Route 9 in Malta, coming out opposite Route 67’s eastern diversion toward Mechanicville. From there, the truck- and personnel-traffic will turn left to the north toward Malta and only have a short distance to go to the entrance to the (proposed) new Tech Park.
That stretch of Route 9 I mention—from Round Lake north to the more thriving section of Malta near the now-infamous Exit 12 roundabouts—seems like an economic war-zone at this point. There are many commercial parcels available as decrepit or past-peak properties beg to be sold to developers or speculators or entrepreneurs who will precede the ACTUAL boom. There are vacant lots that have gone way up in theoretical value. There are roadside motels and produce stands and pizza places that will stand to benefit from the increase in traffic that seems inevitable now. Whereas parts of Route 9 have seemed forgotten and forlorn since the Northway swiped away 95% of the north-south traffic since the 1960’s and ‘70’s… this area certainly seems primed for a re-birth.
And even though—if everything goes swimmingly well and AMD indeed breaks ground for its first factory in the next 12 months sometime—the start-up date for any actual manufacturing on the site would be 2011 or 2012, there is hope in the air of an economic boon to come to the core of Saratoga County.
I have said this before, but it’s worth repeating: the people who are trying to sell their homes or commercial properties or land parcels cannot and should not base their asking prices on their eventual worth, once an AMD plant is up and running. The current realty is that a road is being built, but a shovel has not been stuck in the ground yet for a purported $3.2 Billion dollar plant. Papers have not been signed, nor has a final commitment from Advanced Micro Devices been solidified.
But a County Water pipeline is certainly bearing south on Route 9 from the Town of Moreau and eventually down to Malta, though how it will make its way through or around Saratoga Springs is beyond me. Consider that a major section of Route 9 is also known as “Broadway”— perhaps the most prosperous and densely populated stretch in the County—and you figure the County waterline pathway has to be skirting downtown somehow. If someone has seen the plan for that let me know. I imagine it will trammel alongside the Northway itself somehow, but do not know the path it will take at this point.
I did finally find out the details of the Round Lake Bypass, thanks to Google. Indeed it is a State initiative, so I’m not sure if there was any reason for secrecy on that, or whether I just wasn’t paying attention. Timesunion.com had a brief summary of the project in its Sunday edition, first published January 27, 2008, quoting a state Department of Transportation spokesman named Peter Van Keuren. Tree clearing for the 1.6 mile, 2-lane roadway had commenced last October, and the project was on track for a potential finish date of August, 2009. Not only was the intention of the bypass to divert eventual truck traffic to and from the Tech Park site, but to provide an alternative route for the 5,000 cars per day which reputedly pass through the tight-knit historical enclave of Round Lake Village itself even now. In that the residents of the village are located directly off Exit 11 of a major State Arterial. I’m not sure that traffic, however, will completely dissipate.
The road will cost in the neighborhood of $22.6 million, for those who are interested in such things, and will include a bridge spanning Ballston Creek, and a round-about traffic circle at either end, one just off Exit 11 and another where it will meet the junction of Routes 9 & 67. One thing the article didn’t mention was whether the land being used for the project was paid for, or acquired through eminent domain, although some of it was purportedly owned by the County and Saratoga P.L.A.N. already, and a short stretch of it runs alongside I-87 just north of Exit 11—presumably State-owned land already.
In any case there is some major geological carving and rearranging going on for the next year and a half right in the middle of Saratoga County. Whether AMD commits soon to its $3 Billion dollar factory project or not, the development possibilities in the heart of Malta look promising as a result of this major addition of roadways.
And soon there will be more action and construction at Exit 12 on the Northway, as Saratoga Hospital’s grand expansion plans begin to take shape at the former Horse Farm property at the northwest quadrant of that Malta/Ballston Spa Exit. Along with State Farm’s new executive office park just south of there, this will further spur job growth and stimulate the residential market in that area.
Mid-March Summary
The snowpack is compacting, retreating, settling down. The crusty ground cover is softening, even up here on the plateau. Anything south of Exit 13 on the Northway seems to be completely free of snow by now. The reassuring miracle of spring seems to be possible again, even though it was 9 degrees above zero last night when I went out to look at the midnight sky.
Even more of a miracle, and even more reassuring: the phone is starting to ring again… and both buyers and other agents are calling to see SPA Realty listings. Showings and contracts on somewhat dormant listings pop up again like crocus heads poking through slush.
I always dubbed March “the month of mud” around here, and now the soggy turf is beginning to emerge, even up on the tundra we call home, as I conclude this month’s piece. Hope once again springs eternal… despite dire economic warnings, the rising price of gasoline, a major gubernatorial upheaval, and an ongoing multi-billion dollar war going on in the Middle East. I would like to change the world but I can only remain optimistic on a local scale—keeping focused on solving my client’s needs and issues, attending to my family’s concerns, and getting SPA Realty’s newer agents successfully underway in a challenging business environment. I try to filter out the bad news enough to function without feeling overwhelmed: there is still much to be thankful for, much to enjoy, much to celebrate. I was somewhat fatalistic about the fate of the earth and humanity as an overly intellectual teenager, but I have survived more than three decades past that phase, and I’m not about to give in to despair now that life is in full bloom.
We are a resilient people and have been through hard times before. I hope anyone reading this piece will try to kick their consciousness up a notch on the day before them, and try to uplift others whom you deal with on a daily basis. We are all in this together, as many pop tunes have pointed out, and it’s never been more true than now. Here’s to the re-birth of spring, and the renewal of real estate dreams, and a bounteous life to all.
Till next time…
Wayne Perras, Associate Broker
SPA Realty, Saratoga Springs…
Copyright Wayne Perras 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008