By Stephen Erman and Mark Wilson
Like a slow-moving homecoming parade, the process begun three years ago to relocate the Adirondack Park Agency’s headquarters from Ray Brook four miles west to the Village of Saranac Lake is approaching a critical juncture. The agency’s final destination will depend largely on choices made in New York’s FY 2026 budget, due April 1.
If successful, the vision of Executive Director Barb Rice to move her agency to Saranac Lake’s historic Paul Smith’s Electric Power & Light building at the foot of Main Street will close a loop for the native Saranac Laker. Rice’s career in public service began in 2012 when she was elected village trustee. She subsequently won election to the Franklin County Legislature in Malone before moving to the Governor’s Office in Albany. Governor Hochul appointed Rice to run the Park Agency in February 2022.
Preparations for a new headquarters predate Rice’s tenure at the Park Agency. Her predecessor, Terry Martino, mapped out a plan with New York’s Division of the Budget for a new $15-20 million structure at the state government’s Ray Brook campus. However, Governor Hochul sent Rice to Ray Brook with $29 million for a new headquarters in New York’s FY 2023 budget. The state Legislature approved the funding in April 2022. Within months of Rice’s arrival, Adirondack Park Agency staff approached Saranac Lake’s newly-elected mayor. According to an article in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Mayor James “Jimmy” Williams, said the agency reached out to the village about doing a feasibility study on the Power & Light property not long after he came into office in March 2022. In the article, Williams said he did not have insight into how the APA chose its potential sites.
In 1986, the village purchased the 1920s office building and the integrated 1830s powerhouse which abuts the dam on Lake Flower and controls the level of three lakes above the Saranac River. Saranac Lake’s village offices occupied the front of the structure until 2012. The village police department moved into the rear of the building in 1991, remaining there until earlier this year.
Park Agency staff offered to lease the property from the village—the agency’s charter bars it from owning property—restore the historic 9,237-square foot building and erect a 19,000-square-foot companion structure on the same parcel. From Saranac Lake’s perspective, urgently needed repairs to the Power & Light Building’s foundation would have been an unaffordable expense. Mayor Williams had his own plan to build a combined police, fire and rescue complex elsewhere in the village, which would clear the way for the Park Agency’s construction and occupancy downtown. Closed-door negotiations to hammer out a deal followed.
One year later in June 2023, after Director Rice made her agency’s relocation plans public, Saranac Lake’s Chamber of Commerce and its historic preservation association joined the bandwagon. The village board passed a resolution endorsing the idea.
Nevertheless, any expectation of a smooth march west ran into potholes and detours. The site chosen by the village for its emergency services complex would need a freshwater wetlands permit for direct fire and rescue access to a state highway, presenting the Park Agency with a potentially deal-breaking conflict. The agency has delayed releasing a feasibility study for the project and is seeking an additional $10 million from Albany. Other state authorities were drawn into the broader scheme, providing temporary headquarters for village police in a vacant National Guard armory outside the village.
The parade has been disruptive on both ends of the route. Park Agency staff is divided over the relocation plan, seen by many as a distraction from the agency’s mission. The move would separate the APA from DEC’s Region 5 headquarters, its neighbor and co-regulatory body. Leaving Ray Brook would also mean abandoning the agency’s Forest of Heroes, a stand of trees dedicated to individuals like Clarence Petty, Barbara McMartin and Fred Monroe who have made significant contributions to the Adirondack Park.
On Saranac Lake’s end, the village’s failure to raise $24 million from the federal government for the emergency services complex now threatens to saddle the village with the maximum debt load permitted under New York’s Constitution. Mayor Williams’ concession to the Park Agency, committing to a project designed to avoid Park Agency jurisdiction, will end up sending emergency vehicles through residential streets and increasing response times for most village neighborhoods and residents.
Fork in the road
The conjoined capital projects of the Adirondack Park Agency and the Village of Saranac Lake, begun at a moment of fiscal abundance, have arrived at a moment of deep economic uncertainty. Anticipated cutbacks to the $96 billion in federal funds that are currently provided to New York State have drastically altered budget priorities in Albany. The new reality may eliminate some or all of the extra money earmarked for the Park Agency’s relocation.
Executive Director Rice’s original impulse in deciding to move Park Agency headquarters to Saranac Lake was to provide a transformational project for her agency and her hometown. Three years later, through no fault of her own, that move is more and more likely to end with her agency divided and her hometown in fiscal peril, with public safety services left in limbo.
As the state budget deadline approaches, perhaps the more responsible route to follow for the Adirondack Park’s regional planning agency, would be to circle back to Ray Brook where the Park Agency could build a less ambitious headquarters. If Executive Director Rice is still inclined to help her hometown, she could ask the Governor and the Budget Division to reallocate any remaining money from the original $29 million headquarters appropriation to repairing the historic Power & Light Building for the village’s use. That would certainly be welcomed.
Stephen Erman is a regional development consultant in Saranac Lake. He served as special assistant for economic affairs at the Adirondack Park Agency for 28 years.
Mark Wilson is a freelance cartoonist, illustrator and political observer from Saranac Lake.
Thanks to Mark and Steve for a thoughtful and timely letter. The Village of Saranac Lake needs to get more serious and transparent about capital project planning and financing and Director Rice needs to go back to the drawing board…in Ray Brook.
totally agree with your assessment of their letter and loved the cartoon!
Same tired drum beat from these two…..
As a SL village taxpayer, it is still not clear to me what is the projected increase in my tax bill if the emergency center proceeds? Certainly chasing federal funds is a fools errand at this point. So when the funds run out?
Moving to Saranac Lake, away from Raybrook, where they are located near the DEC, and Troop B for that matter, and have more space which includes for parking, makes no economic sense. If Barbara Rice were not from Saranac Lake, would this idea even be on the table? The SL site has little parking and will add to traffic congestion where it’s already a problem. From Mark’s reporting, it sounds like that the APA staying where it is is the most cost-effective and convenient solution for NYS taxpayers.
I agree with your assessment!
I agree with Naj Wikoff. This move was crazy from the start. The APA should stay right in Ray Brook. Staying in Ray Brook is the most cost-effective and convenient solution for NYS taxpayers.
“the vision of Executive Director Barb Rice to move her agency to Saranac Lake’s historic Paul Smith’s Electric Power & Light building at the foot of Main Street”
“Executive Director Rice’s original impulse in deciding to move Park Agency headquarters to Saranac Lake was to provide a transformational project ..”
It sounds like Rice had a transformational vision, and isn’t that is how great things happen?
Hiding out in Ray Brook at this state compound has always been a bad idea. Barb probably wants to see these folks closer to where the constituents are, mingling a bit, maybe even talking to each other – god forbid people get along. One of the reasons that so many people have disliked the agency over the years is because it is this layout that makes it all look live “us versus them”. I think having the place in the largest village in the Adirondack Park makes perfect sense even if it’s not in that proposed spot. Can they build in Ray Brook and keep doing business, or do they need to tear down the building that is there to build the new one? Can we renovate some of the empty buildings in downtown into offices they could use. Doesn’t seem they need that fancy a place. It’s just offices right, then have the monthly meeting at the Hotel Saranac or something. Use the great room upstairs. Even has a bar for after the meeting!
I have known Steve for decades at a studied distance, never forming an opinion of him. But this article wins my unabated admiration: thorough review of the history, articulated in precise wording and coherent sentences, laid out in perfect concision… but best of all, so balanced a perspective I couldn’t tell which of the many sides of the controversy Erman stands on. Journalism at its best.
I get the sneaking suspicion that the contributors do not approve of the move to SL based on the cartoon..
The APA has become so unpopular these days now even with the people that used to support it. That is not good for the agency. Perhaps it has run its course?
The police and emergency HQ is an entirely separate project. Note the clever use of the adjective “conjoined” in this piece. The projects aren’t conjoined. They aren’t even joined. The APA has its relocation project; the village has its, which involves police, fire and rescue. Only the police used to be in the Power & Light building, and now they’re not. Three different emergency services coming from at least three different locations, none of which is the building the APA is talking about moving into. If that’s conjoined, then I and Mark Wilson are Siamese twins.
He does make a good argument against the village putting up an elaborate emergency services building that would sink it in debt. But absolutely nothing is stopping the village from holding off on its big project and, at the same time, welcoming the APA to Main Street.
Each project should be assessed on its merits. With the APA headquarters, you’ve got a state agency spending state money to rehab a historic building, provide income to the village through its lease and bring 50 or 60 agency employees to downtown, which could go a long way toward easing the historic tension between the APA and local communities.
With all their griping, opponents of the move have yet to come up with any substantive downside, which is why they hold so tightly to the irrelevant argument above.
Exactly – very well said!
Mark and Steve would be interested to know just how little in person interaction NYSDEC staff has with APA staff. It’s a false narrative these two keep trying to perpetuate. Hark, however, in a post Covid 21st century world would two organizations ever communicate without physically being the same room together…APA deals with the department of health just frequently and they’re located in downtown Saranac Lake. Maybe this move will help that relationship. At least they admitted this time that it’s not Barb Rice‘s pet project, but that has started under Terry Martino. The APA has been biding its time being convenient for the taxpayers for 50 years, when do they get invested in? Additionally, with state employees working five out of 10 days remotely, parking should be perfectly sized for the amount of staff in the building on any given day. I mean, how has that parking lot ever hosted parking for farmers markets, music festivals, boat races, parades, winter carnivals in the past, but not 20-40 APA employees. The HORROR!!
Changing addresses isn’t going to make the APA more relevant in today’s Park. If NYS can’t get its act together regarding the APA’s long-term staffing, scope, and goals, a move is silly. Folding up the tent may be the smartest option.