The Capital Region Maritime Center could get the break it needs if a nonprofit organization looking to expand its programming decides to put roots there.
The Fast Break Fund, based in Cohoes, is looking into leasing out Maritime Center, which hasn’t had a tenant since BOCES left the center at the end of June 2011. Anthony Hynes, vice president of Fast Break Fund, has led the effort of evaluating the 10,000-square-foot facility. The center’s waterfront opportunities aren’t what grabbed Hynes’ attention, but rather the woodworking potential.
“We are going to be doing woodworking and … basically occupational training for people with special needs,” Hynes said. “It was already set up for that previously, so that is one advantage.”
“A lot of the kids that run through our program are from Schenectady County, so location wise it is pretty desirable,” he added.
The group also serves Albany, Saratoga and Rensselaer counties along with other Capital District areas. Between its two programs, special needs and underprivileged, Hynes said around 400 to 600 kids are active in the program each year.
Hynes founded the organization with his brother, Lawrence, in 1995 with the primary goal of providing athletic opportunities through sports camps for lower income children. It expanded to offering sports camps for special needs children and has an array of woodworking classes.
Many children in the program joined when they were young, around 8 years old, and now many are older. Hynes said the center would provide job training opportunities for members from 15 to 25 years old.
“A lot of the kids that have run through our program over the years are getting older and they need occupational training opportunities,” he said, “so we are sort of just addressing the needs of our constituents.”
He said it would be an additional program for the group and he is even thinking ahead toward housing opportunities. The group produces Adirondack chairs, clocks, breadboxes and wine boxes.
“Their needs are changing and we have been working with them for many years and we want to continue on that path,” he said.
While providing vocational training, he said it could also provide funds for the group by selling the items produced. Fast Break primarily relies on donations.
“When you are relying on charitable contributions, those sources … can go up and down depending on the economy and a variety of other reason,” Hynes said, “but if you have some products to sell, particularly products that have some enduring value, hopefully that will be a more consistent funding source.”
He said the programming Fast Break offers is important because there’s a need for it in area communities. Around 90 percent of people with developmental disabilities under the age of 35 still live at home, he said, which is largely due to a lack of job opportunities.
Plans to move into the facility aren’t set in stone, though.
“We are currently talking with the (Fast Break Fund Board of Directors) and the Maritime Center to come up with a situation that works for everybody,” Hynes said. “I think eventually we will be successful.”
Maritime Center President Chester Watson didn’t have quite as optimistic a tone when discussing the deal.
“It is hard to figure out what you are negotiating if the other party is not really talking to you,” Watson said. “I think that we are continuing to miss each other in communication, so we are continuing to attempt to establish those communication links so we can in fact discuss.”
Watson said on Monday, March 5, he hadn’t yet “spoken directly” with someone from the Fast Break Fund.
He added the center has also talked to the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, which is a nonprofit focused on preserving and sharing the history of Lake Champlain. Watson said the center is trying to get additional information about its longboat-building program.
The monthly rent for the facility would be around $10,000, according to Watson.
The center can’t find just any tenant though, because it needs to find an organization teaching low- to moderate-income students. The stipulation is from the terms of a loan the center received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, on which the center still owes around $390,000.
The Town of Glenville facilitates the loan payment for the center, but Supervisor Christopher Koetzle has previously said the town is not liable to pay it off.
There were previously discussions with the Eximius Education Foundation, which also has looked at the former Draper School in Rotterdam before deciding against it. If Eximius had moved into the center student enrollment would have exceed the space offered at the facility.
