Orangetown Helping Find Developer For Former Conference Center

ORANGETOWN, NY — The former IBM Palisades Conference Center is up for sale again, and this time Orangetown officials are taking an active role in finding a new purpose for the 106-acre site off Route 9W.

Built in the 1980s, it was the host for the national governors' education summit in 1996, as policy makers hammered out a vision for academic standards and testing from elementary through high school.

In 2016 HNA Group bought IBM's 106-acre, 450,000-square-foot Palisades Conference Center, located 20 miles north of Manhattan, for $59.6 million as a resource and training center for the China-based conglomerate's global executive team.

It has been vacant for about a year and HNA wants to unload it. The town wants to turn it into a mix of high-end uses that will generate economic and other benefits for the community. The property now pays about $1.2 million in school taxes and $600,000 a year in town taxes.

Michael Zarin, the town's special counsel on the project, told Patch that Orangetown officials wanted to have a say "to play an active role, to make the property a productive contributor to the economic activity of the town."

Since the town put out a request for project ideas, they've heard back from several interested parties. A site visit scheduled for Monday has more than a dozen people signed up, said AKRF consultant Ashley Ley, who has worked with other municipalities in the Hudson Valley on re-purposing large properties, and is advising the town on the developer selection and regulatory process.

Some of the most in-demand ideas that have been floated for the property include a luxury spa and wellness center, restaurants and bars, commercial office space, residential housing, and outdoor recreation.

The deadline for responses to the town's request for expressions of interest is March 1.

"We're looking for concepts from viable who can execute and are creative," Zarin said. Town officials hope to have someone chosen by mid-April.

One of the interested developers is William Procida, president of Procida Funding & Advisors, who tried to buy the property in 2016 but lost out to HNA, The Journal News reported. Procida lives in Piermont.