An architect's rendering of Snell Hall (left) and Congdon (right) upon completion of the project.

POTSDAM -- Clarkson University’s downtown Congdon Hall and Snell Hall buildings will be redeveloped into housing and other facilities, university officials announced today.

Snell will be renovated for “attractive professional housing” on the third and fourth floors to help employers recruit professional staff to the area, including 11 “loft-style” units. In Congdon, which sits behind Snell to the east, plans call for an “apartment community" with fitness center, laundry facilities and common spaces.

Clarkson has accepted a proposal from Omni Housing Development and Sequence Development to re-purpose the former academic buildings, officials said. The university plans to enter into a long-term ground lease with Omni-Sequence to redevelop the buildings. At the end of the ground lease the property will revert to Clarkson.

"This is the next step in our active investment in the future of our downtown campus," says Clarkson President Tony Collins. "Clarkson is committed to the region’s vision to cultivate innovative clusters like the arts in our rural communities, encourage small business start-ups and elevate global recognition of the North Country as one of the special places on the planet to visit, live, work and study.”

The mixed-use project introduces the region’s first venue providing cultural arts and interactive learning experiences to residents of the North Country. It will also feature residential units designed for graduate and post-doc students and market-rate housing for professionals. The combined initiatives are designed to bring more economic activity into businesses and cultural offerings in the downtown Potsdam community.

"We view this project as a dynamic partnership between the university, RAIL, the Village of Potsdam and the larger North Country community," says Jeffrey A. Buell, president of Sequence Development.

Congdon Hall was the former home of Potsdam College's Research and Development Center and the Congdon Campus School, before becoming a residence hall. Clarkson gradually occupied offices, classroom and residence spaces and eventually purchased both buildings during the 1950s to accommodate its expanding enrollment.

In Congdon Hall, Omni-Sequence plans to create an apartment community that makes use of its unique spaces. The two-story gymnasium will be repurposed into a state-of-the art fitness facility, and laundry facilities and common spaces will also be added.

Downtown Snell Hall will become a mixed-use facility that includes arts and learning uses on the first and second floors, with attractive professional housing on the third and fourth floors, officials said.

The Regional Arts and Interactive Learning Project (RAIL), a collaboration between the St. Lawrence County Arts Council and the North Country Children’s Museum, will provide space for artists’ business incubators, a changing gallery exhibition, professionally equipped art studios and K-12 interactive learning stations in the STEAM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics).

RAIL is slated to occupy 35,000 square feet in Snell. The North Country Children’s Museum will occupy the first and second floors and has plans for exhibits, museum shop, community room and offices.

The St. Lawrence County Arts Council will utilize the first and second floors of the south wing for a gallery, retail gallery, art studios, arts incubator space, visiting artist studio, offices, an “industrial” arts space and virtual learning resource center, along with a café and community/assembly space.

Downtown Snell Hall will also feature market-rate housing that will help area employers recruit professional staff more readily. The third floor will consist of a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments that make great reuse of the former classroom space. Each will have unique finishes, tremendous views and high ceilings. The fourth floor will also play into the historic layout of the building, creating 11 larger “loft”-style apartments that will feature two bedrooms and larger apartments.

Exterior plans call for maximizing the Elm Street parking north of the buildings, with new vehicular and pedestrian pavements, lighting, benches, bike parking, trees, bus drop-off, and a rear-entrance canopy. The green space across from the village office complex will be preserved as a “great lawn” for outdoor events and arts fairs, restoring damaged trees and planting new ones. The courtyard between Congdon and Snell will be enhanced with potential use for outdoor dining or a children’s play area.

The most recent step in Clarkson's evolution of its Downtown Campus -- major renovations to the historic Old Main building -- was initiated last August and will house the North Country’s first green data center using IBM technologies and research facilities for the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, a subsidiary of Clarkson University.

The now-completed first phase of Clarkson's downtown redevelopment saw renovation of Clarkson Hall for Health Professions programs (Doctor of Physical Therapy and Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies), renovation of Peyton Hall as a business incubator for Clarkson's Shipley Center for Innovation, and development of business space for the community in Lewis House.

Both buildings in Clarkson’s project will be nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. The renovation brings Downtown Snell Hall full circle to its beginning service to the Potsdam Community. Original construction for the current building was completed in 1919 for the Potsdam Normal School and would eventually house its Crane School of Music, before the State University moved to its current campus on Pierrepont Avenue.

Omni Housing Development of Albany specializes in the development, financing, construction and management of affordable housing. Omni is teaming with Sequence Development founder Jeffrey Buell to develop the housing. Members of Sequence have already produced great success in this type of endeavor for the City of Troy and with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Buell is formerly a real estate development executive with the United Group of Companies, in Troy a position he left to form Sequence Development, a real estate development group that focuses on urban redevelopment and leveraging the benefits of high employers in education and health care sectors.

Other partners include McKinney MacDonald Architects LLC of Latham, which specializes in facilities for higher education; U.W. Marx Construction Company of Troy, considered one of the premier full service construction companies in upstate New York; and Engineered Solutions of Clifton Park, an engineering consulting firm, which offers professional design services in the disciplines of mechanical and electrical engineering.

For more, visit www.clarkson.edu/news/2013/news-release_2013-08-15-1.html .