The Schenectady Environmental Education Center received the funding as part of $20 million dispersed through the state Regional Economic Development Council Initiative in December. Schenectady also received $85,000 to fund its ongoing comprehensive plan update.
The education center project was announced in the fall of 2023 and was originally projected to open in 2024, with organizers seeking the final funding to move forward.
The project, which is estimated to cost $1.4 million, previously received $500,000 in state funding, $250,000 from the city and additional charitable funding.
The city-owned education center will be operated by Schoharie River Center, with the City Council approving a measure during its Dec. 9 meeting authorizing Mayor Gary McCarthy to enter into a lease agreement with the organization for an undetermined length of time.
According to John McKeeby, executive director of the Schoharie River Center, the organizers are currently seeking the final $200,000 for the project, saying on Monday that he hopes the construction work can be conducted this year with a potential opening date in the fall.
“I’m optimistic and hoping that we’ll be able to have the building completed so we can operate out of it by fall of 2025,” he said.
McKeeby said the latest round of state funding would be key in moving forward with the project, which would start with interior demolition work on the facility, which previously housed a snack shop that closed in 2018.
“This funding is very important to finishing the environmental education center and getting it established and renovated,” McKeeby said.
While the casino building is in disrepair and not usable, the Schoharie River Center has partnered with the Schenectady City School District for an afterschool program focusing on environmental education. The group conducted youth programming last summer in city parks as it waits for the environmental center to open.
“We’re doing activities and getting kids outside and learning about their environment,” McKeeby said. “With the older kids, we’re starting to do some locally-based environmental research using city parks as our outdoor classroom. Many of the things that we envision happening within the environmental education center, we’ve been building already now.”
The environmental center will be a carbon-zero property, with the site to utilize solar power and energy-efficient features to create an environmentally sustainable building in the center of the park.
“We’re hoping to get the building up and running as soon as possible, but they’ve been very creative in working around that,” McCarthy said. “They’ve been working with the school district and in the parks during the summer.”
The Schenectady City Council also passed a resolution during its Dec. 9 meeting in support of the Schoharie River Center seeking additional funding for the project in the form of a prospective Department of Environmental Conservation grant separate from the $118,920 in state funding the project received at the end of 2024.
“We’ve been looking very aggressively at how we can fund this to make sure that this is going to happen,” McKeeby said.
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