The conversation continues about the possible rehabilitation of the old Borden condensed milk factory on Route 208 into a boutique hotel and spa area with a focus on winemaking.

Founder of the successful City Winery, which has multiple locations in New York and other states, Michael Dorf proposed this project in early 2022. The plan is for a 30-room hotel with ten suites and a roughly 75-person restaurant. The counsel of the project has since been in contact with Montgomery’s Historic Preservation Commission as well as local government.

Member of the Milk Factory LLC counsel Charlie Bazydlo updated the public on the project’s goal last week.

“Our basic plan is to develop a boutique hotel spa facility. It’ll have a functioning distillery winery associated with it and event space. Right now there’s about 46,000 square feet of building there, and our plan is to redevelop that and add square footage to it to bring the total square footage up to about 100,000 square feet,” said Bazydlo.

Ten thousand of that square footage will be used to construct a building for their wine distillery.

Members of the public and Montgomery Industrial Development Agency (IDA) board members have shown support for the said project. Village of Montgomery resident Don Berger stated his hope for this project’s approval. “I think this is exactly what we want in the Town of Montgomery and I hope there’s more similar projects ahead for us with this. I think it’s a great one and one of those [that] we call the no brainer. So I think we should move forward on it,” said Berger at the December 13 IDA meeting.
IDA Chairman Jeffrey D. Crist mentioned that he and some other board members had a chance to visit the old factory. Crist vouched that the building is in disrepair and that rehabilitating it would only be beneficial. “It’s exciting to have a potential use for it and an attraction to the Town of Montgomery and the county of Orange,” said Crist.

Bazydlo stated that they are currently working their way through the planning board process and predict a public hearing in January with the Town of Montgomery planning board. Shortly after, they hope to receive a State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) determination and later an eventual site plan.

The project is also hoping to receive approval to form a new sewer district. The estimated cost to do this is $671,000, which if approved, would come partially from the town. The sewer district proposal would pump sewer waste to the Town of Shawangunk wastewater treatment plant.

The IDA planned for a public hearing for the Milk Factory project on February 14. So far the project has not been fully approved by the planning board and they still have a long way to go.