A sprawling new proposal would bring 517 residential units and an 80-room hotel to the grounds of Casperkill Golf Club in the Town of Poughkeepsie, while leaving the course’s 18 holes intact. Ginsburg Development Corporation has submitted conceptual site plans and architectural renderings covering roughly 348 acres, with the project set to go before the Poughkeepsie Town Board on Wednesday, November 4.
According to 101.5 WPDH, the plan calls for 443 apartments and 74 townhomes, broken down into four apartment buildings holding 86 units apiece and one larger building with 99 units. Townhomes would be sold while the apartments would be offered for rent, and the developer has designated 10 percent of the residential units as below-market-rate housing. The proposal also includes swimming pools, clubhouses, and other amenities, plus limited commercial development along Route 9 — though specific stores or restaurants have not been named.
Golf Course Would Stay, With New Protections
Casperkill’s existing 18-hole public golf course would remain under the plan, and the developer says it intends to protect significant portions of the property from future construction. That includes preserving environmentally sensitive areas near Casperkill Creek and creating publicly accessible walking trails. Ginsburg also plans to preserve the historic Fort House on the property and convert it into a management office.
The course itself has deep roots in the area. Casperkill Golf Club says its public course was built in 1944 and designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr., and the land was once part of IBM’s recreational facilities before it opened to the public.
A New Zoning District on the Table
To make the project possible, Ginsburg is requesting a new zoning district tailored specifically to the site. The developer is asking the town to swap out the existing Crown Heights Center overlay designation in favor of a Casperkill Conservation Development District, which would permit the residential and hotel development while requiring preservation of the golf course and open space. The proposal still needs zoning changes and other approvals before any construction could begin, per the station’s report.
An Earlier, Smaller Plan Never Materialized
This isn’t the first time redevelopment has been floated at Casperkill. Back in 2023, an earlier proposal envisioned a far smaller footprint — an 11-acre section along Route 9 with roughly 85,000 square feet of commercial development and 26 dwelling units, according to the station’s earlier coverage. That version included a specialty grocery store and several restaurants, including one with a drive-thru, and the Town of Poughkeepsie Planning Board was slated to review a site plan for that 11-acre development on July 20. The grocery store and restaurants from that 2023 pitch were never delivered, and the project is described as having stalled.
At the time, the earlier Casperkill project was compared to two other major Town of Poughkeepsie developments: Eastdale Village and Hudson Heritage. Eastdale Village was pitched as a $90 million, 60-acre residential and retail center expected to include about 390 apartments, 120,000 square feet of retail space, and 20 acres of parkland, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. That project had already cleared both the zoning board and planning board before construction was expected to begin, and developers anticipated 300 construction jobs along with 85 to 300 permanent jobs once businesses opened.
Hudson Heritage Offers Another Comparison
Hudson Heritage, meanwhile, called for transforming the 156-acre former Hudson River Psychiatric Center site just north of Marist College into a walkable community, with plans for 750 residential units, 350,000 square feet of commercial space, and a 150-room hotel, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported in 2019. The same scale — hundreds of housing units paired with hotel and commercial space — echoes what Ginsburg is now proposing at Casperkill, though the current plan’s hotel component is considerably smaller at 80 rooms.
Whether the new Casperkill plan follows Eastdale Village toward approval or stalls like its 2023 predecessor remains to be seen. The Town Board’s review Wednesday marks the first major test for a proposal that, if it clears zoning hurdles, would reshape hundreds of acres along Route 9 while attempting to keep the 1944 golf course and its surrounding green space intact.
