Plans to build a new warehouse for the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley in Montgomery are moving along, with the not-for-profit receiving a go-ahead last week from the Montgomery Village Board.

The warehouse, to be located near the intersection of Routes 211 and 416 in the Village of Montgomery, has already received conditional subdivision approval from the planning board and a height variance from the Montgomery ZBA, but village code requires that any proposal of at least 4,000 square feet of floor space in the industrial zone also receive a resolution of approval from the village board.

Attorney Marcia Jacobowitz, representing the Food Bank, presented the village board with a draft resolution for their approval. She offered assurance that the distribution center would be aesthetically pleasing.

“When you come down 416, you will see a building that looks like an office building,“ she told the trustees.
The building in question will rise to a height of 45 feet and sit on a footprint of 40,000 square feet. The height variance was required for anything higher than 35 feet.

Jacobowitz, at a previous meeting, said the proposed facility would serve six counties, with food arriving via truck from The Regional Food Bank in Latham, NY. The Food Bank has a smaller facility in Cornwall that it has outgrown.

This past spring, the project was awarded a $10.7 million grant through the Community Development Block Grant CARES program administered by New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Due to the economic impact of the COVID pandemic, the demand for food assistance across the Hudson Valley Region grew substantially and the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley outgrew its current facility. Though the project is physically located within the Village of Montgomery, the grant application was filed by the Town of Montgomery.