Brookfield Properties, the Orange County Partnership, the City of Newburgh and community partners broke ground for the Newburgh South Logistics Center at 700 South Street on Wednesday, July 16. The anticipated construction is expected to be completed by August of 2026.

The former DuPont-Stauffer Landfill once operated along South St. before closing, later declared a superfunded site and underwent remediation. There are no buildings on the project site and the land has remained vacant for some time. Over the past few weeks, it has been cleared for construction.

The city project is a new single-building, Class A facility designed for modern logistics needs. It is currently being built on spec and does not have an identified tenant. The building is 416,320 square feet on 49.6 acres of land with 75 loading docks, 5,000 square feet of office space and would be LEED certified. There are hopeful plans to add solar capabilities on the rooftop. RC Andersen will be handling the construction of the project, while Tom Consiglio and Scott Peck of Resource Realty will be leading the leasing campaign on behalf of Brookfield Properties.

On Wednesday afternoon, Brookfield representatives and staff, elected officials, community partners and members gathered at the construction site in preparation for the groundbreaking ceremony. Conor Eckert, President and CEO of the Orange County Partnership, shares that it is an exciting time to be doing economic development in Orange County, in the Hudson Valley. “A project of this magnitude, it takes a full team approach from local government, county to state government to really pull off an ambitious redevelopment project like this,” said Eckert. “I think it’s a great diversifying and balancing type project for the community and for the greater county and market, I think this further solidifies our position as an emerging leader in the industrial economic development space in lower New York.”

The ceremony began with brief words from Will Pasik of Brookfield. “At Brookfield we’re a global asset manager with a simple mission: own, operate and develop high quality real estate that attract the best in class tenant. We’re not just builders, we’re owners and partners in the communities that we develop in and that’s a commitment we’re bringing to this project here in Newburgh,” said Pasik.

Elected officials joining the ceremony were Senator Rob Rolison, Assemblyman Jonathan Jacobson, Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus and Mayor Torrance Harvey joined by Councilman Bob Sklarz.

Eckert shared similar sentiments later on during the remarks.

“We know what this is all about, but people driving by, who live in the City of Newburgh, work in the City of Newburgh, have got to be excited, saying, “hey, how long was that property vacant?”

“How long was it a Brownfield if they knew that and now it’s not,” said Rolison.

Jacobson, a longtime city resident, recalled when the site was abandoned but is now excited to see what comes next. “This is a great day, great day for the City of Newburgh, great day for the region,” said Jacobson. “Realize you have a partner in the assembly, and I’m excited to see the next stage.”

Neuhaus offered thanks to Brookfield for their work and is equally excited about the development in the city. “The obituary for this site was written decades ago. You’re bringing this place back to life. The hundreds of men and women that are going to work on building this and then the hundreds of men and women that are going to be working here to have permanent jobs, it’s transformational,” said Neuhaus.

Mayor Harvey highlighted the transformation that is on-going in the city. “Newburgh is in a transformation. The City of Newburgh is going through what we call a rebirth, the Renaissance, the rebirth of a new Newburgh and part of that new Newburgh is creating economic opportunities, economic stimulus for our city and our neighbors,” said Harvey. “Many hands, many minds, one goal and that’s to move our city and our community with our neighboring towns in Orange County forward.”

After the conclusion of remarks, elected officials, Brookfield team members and other partners joined for photos and a celebratory tossing of dirt with golden shovels to mark the occasion. The crowd enjoyed refreshments to end the afternoon ceremony.

Pasik offered follow up remarks for the members of the city community who will be seeing this project go up over the next year or so. “I think for the community members, we’re very happy to be here, and I know that we’re going to be bringing a best in class tenant. So, we’re building this on spec, meaning we don’t have the end user here, but that end user is going to be one of our stable of 500 tenants across our national portfolio,” said Pasik. “If you’ve lived in Newburgh, and you walk past this and you’ve seen this site be vacant for many years, you can be really excited to see a very beautiful building that’s going to be coming, that’s going to be employing local people.”