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Five condo buildings are going up in Kiryas Joel










































Workers continue with a flurry of construction to meet the growing demand for housing, social services and jobs in this burgeoning village of about 18,000 Hasidim.

Village Administrator Gedalye Szegedin said the primary goals of his municipality are to address the need for more affordable housing, health services for women and jobs in a community with a median household income of $18,300, according to the Census Bureau's 2005 figures.

There are more than five new condominium sites under construction, which will add more than 450 units to the supply of housing. The largest site, Bakertown Condominiums, will provide 346 units and is located on a hill that will become the extension of Dinev Court, behind the village's future business center.

Szegedin said the village is on schedule to complete the five-story, 80,000-square-foot business center at the corner of Bakertown Road and Route 105 by the end of the year. Plans for the construction of the multipurpose business facility initially stalled around 2003, when the village failed to lure larger corporate investors to the site, prompting banks to withdraw financing.

However, construction on the $8- to $10-million project moved forward, and small Hasidic businesses in and around the village should move in upon completion, Szegedin said. The village is also planning to build a 160-space park and ride with a bus depot next to the business center to offer more convenient transportation for village residents to get to New York City.

The village, which has offices on the second floor of a two-story shopping strip on Forest Road, will move into a large section of the business center's second floor. Szegedin said the village has not given up on courting a corporate employer that could provide jobs for Kiryas Joel residents.

Kiryas Joel Union Free Schools is expected to move its public school for special education students from its current location on Kahan Drive to a 40,000-square-foot building under construction on Bakertown Road, near the business center. The new building will drastically expand the school's current capacity, as well as add new jobs, Szegedin said.

Next to the new public school, workers are completing the foundation for the future Hamaspik Day Rehabilitation, a 30,000-square-foot residential facility for severely handicapped children and adults. The facility is an expansion of Hamaspik's services, which includes multiple buildings throughout Monroe.

A nonprofit organization catering to improving women's health is nearing completion of an $11 million, 50,000-square-foot Women's Services Center off county Route 44 just behind the Emergency Services Center. That facility will primarily provide prenatal and postnatal health care and social services for women and their infants.

Another nonprofit recently completed the 40,000- square-foot Keren Plaza Banquet Hall on Forest Road, next to the shopping strip, to provide space for the numerous religious-based ceremonies and celebrations of Kiryas Joel families, Szegedin said.

"People have large families, and they have small apartments, and they don't have a place for all these functions," Szegedin said.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070618/NEWS/706180325