Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Mark Frost, Chronicle Editor
Shirt Factory redeveloper Eric Unkauf is installing a spur on the Warren County Bike Trail between Leonard Street and Curran Lane that will connect not just to his repurposed factory complex but to Glens Falls’s new arts district.
Mr. Unkauf is also buying the city-owned parcel that includes the bike trail spur and the adjacent, historic but neglected Delaware & Hudson railroad tower along Leonard Street.
Mayor Dan Hall confirmed the sale. “I think it was a thousand dollars,” he said Tuesday when The Chronicle asked the price. “He wants to restore that tower. It’s just been sitting there, becoming dilapidated. He’s been talking about restoring that area for a while.”
“I was gonna do this years ago,” Mr. Unkauf said, but that everyone advised him to wait for possible matching funds from the Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) $10-million state grant the city will receive.
Finally, he said, “I just wound up doing it myself. I’m trying to get things cleaned up for Rock Hill [Cafe, his tenant]. He’s gonna reopen here sometime later in the month.”
Mr. Unkauf said his neighbor Services Unlimited is doing the work. “Services Unlimited did the heavy lifting, so to speak. They took out all the old railroad ties. They laid the gravel bed in where the old railroad bed was. They’ve got it paved now.
“I’m hoping to get the landscaping done this month. I’ve got to bring in some soil and I’m gonna try to do something other than lawn — Dutch clover with grass. I don’t want to go straight grass.” He said, “The biggest thing is getting rid of all the stupid kudzu vines. There’s a tree that’s probably 150 years old. I cut one vine [off of it] that had to be five inches in diameter.”
Price tag? “I had estimated with the plantings and everything else, probably around $15,000,” but Mr. Unkauf joked that he’ll find out when Services Unlimited sends him his bill. “He’s usually pretty fair with me.”
Mr. Unkauf said he plans to install a bollard with a historical link at the ends of the path to keep cars from venturing onto the trail. He said it will incorporate steel track that was taken up from the railbed.
He said it’s indicative of the pride taken a century ago that the rail bears the dates 1913 and 1916 and the words Bethlehem Steel. “I think it said Bessemer furnace.”
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