Gazette Advertiser, November 13, 2003 By: Darrell Kuhn Monty Row branching out More businesses are coming to Rhinebeck. Anyone living or passing through Rhinebeck throughout the last two months likely has noticed a new building being erected on Montgomery Street, next to the Rhinebeck Grille bar and restaurant. The owners of Montgomery Row, a commercial business complex at 6422 Montgomery Street in the village, are having a two-floor, 28,000-square foot structure built across the street on a once vacant lot. The Rhinebeck Village Planning Board granted site plan approval for the project in April. The new building was approved for commercial, office, and residential use. David Souers, owner of Optimus Architecture in Rhinebeck, said earlier this week that the project is going well so far. Optimus Architecture is the firm that designed the project. "All of the foundation is in," said Souers. "The structuring steel is up. We're waiting on the roof trusses. The geothermal wells are being installed for the heating and cooling system." Souers said Red Hook-based Rondack Construction is working "furiously" to get all of the project's site work done before the blacktop plants close for the winter. The work for the new building started in late August, and Souers said they hope to finish the whole construction portion of the project in February. Souers said they will do landscaping work on the site in the spring. He added that the Montgomery Row owners want to start occupying the new building with businesses in early 2004. Plans for the new building call for having its storefronts face Montgomery Street, which is also Route 9. Construction plans call for a large pedestrian sidewalk that will wrap around the south side of the building and all of the storefronts to Garden Street, as well as a sidewalk along the Garden Street side of the lot. Garden Street is behind the new building's lot and runs parallel to Montgomery Street. Both floors of the new building will be 14,000-square-feet, and the structure will not have a basement. The building will have an underground, water-based geothermal heating system, which is environmentally friendly, not requiring the burning of fuel, and will also be economically efficient. The project will include a one-way driveway from Montgomery Street, through the site, and onto Garden Street for access to parking spaces. The lot size is .822 acres. The current Montgomery Row building on Montgomery Street was completed in 2001. It is the former location of the Rhinebeck Garage, which was an automobile business. Montgomery Row currently houses various businesses, including a bookstore, restaurant, massage studio, and clothing store. Piper Hartshorn, a Montgomery Row manager, has said that Rondack Construction also did the construction work for the current Montgomery Row building in the village. Earlier this week, Hartshorn also said the project is going well and its "right on track". She said businesses will be open in the new building this spring. "We'll probably have a grand opening celebration in the late spring or early summer," said Hartshorn. Although she could not reveal all the names of the businesses going in the new building, Hartshorn said a restaurant named Phoenix Rising will open there. "It will be open for lunch and dinner," she said. Hartshorn added that many of the businesses will open in the new building are community-based stores, as well as already existing businesses opening a second store there.