As the 2025 New York State legislative session comes to a close, a major takeaway will be the State’s investment in the City of Albany.
In the FY2026 Budget, $400 million is allocated towards revitalizing Albany’s Downtown, and now, another measure, which didn’t make it into the Budget, has been passed by the New York State Senate.
Senate Bill S1613A, sponsored by Democrat Pat Fahy of Albany, passed this week. It would require
7 acres of the 27-acre $1.7 billion Wadsworth Labs project on the Harriman State Campus
to be reserved for mixed use commercial, retail or residential development. A master plan would also need to be created for redevelopment.
“I want a master plan on Harriman campus,” Fahy tells CBS6. “I want us to think bigger, think more creatively. Eliminate possibly a part of the ring roads for more commercial, retail and what have you. I’ve also spent over about 10 years advocating for the Wadsworth labs, but they shouldn’t be taking a full 27 acres of prime real estate there and turning almost half of it into a parking lot. We’ve got to get out of the 1960s. That’s been my, my chant for a couple of years now. Let’s get out of the 1960s. Yes, I’m all in on the Wadsworth labs, but you don’t need to use valuable land, state land. And by the way, the Governor has issued an executive order saying we need to look at all state land to build more housing. I want retail, housing, commercial. There’s a lot of things that could be done.”
Pushback has come in the concern that the change would delay the slow-moving project, which is expected to be finished by 2030, though, Fahy says that this legislation won’t change the timeline.
“Local electeds, county-electeds, labor, organized labor, community groups, all the neighborhood groups who have signed on to repeated letters with myself, with Asm. John McDonald, with Asm. Gabriela Romero, saying, think bigger. And no one wants a shovel in the ground more than me, because I’ve spent 10 years on this. But you can imagine with the building trades, of course, they want shovels in the ground. We are anxious to get this built, but you can build the labs and create some space. It’s a $1.7 billion investment, the single biggest public investment since we invested in SUNY Poly, which then led to Global Foundries that became the second biggest public investment. Any time the public is investing their dollars, we should be looking at what is the multiplier effect? What is the ripple effect? So when you just go and build a lab, without creating any space for retail, a coffee shop, a restaurant, places for a young research scientist to live. None of that has been thought through. So it’s $1.7 billion without any multiplier effect. We can do more. We can think bigger. We have got to get out of the 1960s. That is what’s held us back on I787, it was those design flaws that have held us back and kept us from our greatest natural resource. It’s the same with Empire State Plaza. And it’s the same with the Uptown parking lot district, 200 acres in the heart of a city. It has never benefited the city. So that is my frustration.”
While the State Senate is expected to finish up their session by Thursday night/Friday morning, the State Assembly will likely stay until next week, where the bill would need to pass before lawmakers leave for the rest of the year.
