TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. – Town officials are reviewing an application for the U.S. Crane building to have 35,474 square feet added to its existing 55,798-square-foot warehouse facility along the U.S. Route 9W/ East Chester Street bypass.
The application, submitted by property owner 2-4 Kieffer Lane LLC, will come back to the town Planning Board after it is reviewed by Ulster County officials, Supervisor James Quigley said on Friday.
Under the application, there would be an expansion of 22,700 square feet on the rear of the existing building, with the new section covering the entirety of a 22-foot-tall section and half of the building’s 33-foot-tall section.
“The primary goal of this proposal is to enhance our operational capacity by adding three new warehouses specifically designed for equipment storage,” project engineer Luis Mello wrote in the application.
Information was not provided on whether the additional warehouse would be taller than the existing structure.
“This main warehouse will serve as the primary storage facility,” Mello wrote. “Its size will allow for organized storage of our larger cranes.”
A 3,780-square-foot addition would be put on the west side of the building.
“This smaller addition will likely be used for more immediate access to small parts, equipment or tools that are frequently needed,” Mello wrote.
There would also be an 8,994 square feet addition on the east side of the building that fronts U.S. Route 9W, with the application stating that space would house “specialized equipment or overflow” from the larger facility.
“This will help streamline our operations by distributing storage across multiple locations,” Mello wrote.
Officials are also being asked to approve the construction of a 14,000-gallon water storage tank that the application states would be for “collection of rainwater and other water runoff” to be used in the production of concrete.
The 4.2-acre property proposed for the expansion is one of four connected parcels on the north side of Kieffer Lane that are used for crane operations and concrete manufacturing. Lattice work sections of the cranes, trucks, and prefabricated concrete structures are on 3.95 acres owned by Cranesville Block, 12.6 acres owned by Keifer (cs) Lane Realty, and 9.3 acres owned by Miron Building Products.
Use of the property has been part of the controversy surrounding U.S. Crane owner Thomas Auringer’s August 2019 expansion of the business for remote storage of equipment on a 110-acre property at 850 state Route 28 in the town of Kingston. In that application, he was able to convince officials that the property’s previous permit for use of 0.2 acres of storage “in conjunction with quarry” operations, which was discontinued before a change in ownership, was valid for storage of latticework that has been measured on the Ulster County GIS map at about 8 acres.
Auringer has previously been unsuccessful in getting the county Industrial Development Agency to exempt $978,268 in sales taxes on the purchase of $12.9 million for eight large cranes. After being turned down for the tax breaks in August 2017, he lost a court challenge of the decision in April 2018 and lost an appeal in May 2019, then was required to pay the agency $80,000 in legal fees in a deal that was not made public until after the departure of then-Chairman Randall Leverette.