ELLENVILLE � It's been a long time coming, but Monday's village board meeting confirmed what many have regarded as an unfortunate eventuality: Gillette Creamery will likely be moving to a new site in Gardiner. March Gallagher, Ulster County's Deputy Director for Economic Development, appeared before the board to seek their support for both moving Gillette's business to Gardiner and also the county's efforts to work out a plan for the county to take control of their soon-to-be-vacant Ellenville site, and then to lease it out to a for-profit enterprise, thereby creating 10 or 11 new jobs in the village.

Gallagher elaborated on the project in a phone interview the next day.

"It's hard to find 12,000 square feet of negative 15 degrees," she said, referring to the freezer facility that Gillette Creamery currently inhabits in Ellenville. "And if you look at freezer space in the North East, basically it's at 100 percent capacity � people are always moving things around. That's exactly why Gillette needs to move. They're getting requests from the people they do business with�for more capacity. Basically freezer space in this area of the country is totally a hundred percent full�it's maxed out � which means that there's a substantial argument to be made for repurposing this facility."

To relocate the company to an abandoned furniture manufacturing facility in Gardiner � the best move in a situation which threatened to take Gillette Creamery out of the county or state altogether � the Town of Gardiner, in conjunction with Ulster County, is seeking a Restore New York grant. The grant can provide up to $2.5 million for projects to rehabilitate facilities like the one Gillette has selected, and Gallagher estimated that this particular project may only need $1 million.

The other half of the project involves Ulster County's efforts to retain control of Ellenville site and to lease it out to a for-profit enterprise which may or may not be created by the county itself.

"Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation [HVADC], which is partially funded by the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency [UCIDA], as well as other counties, has sought permission from the USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] to reprogram $10,000 of their money to do a feasibility study on this location in Ellenville for an agricultural-processing, food processing, cold storage distribution facility," she explained.

"The goal is to submit a grant application through the RBEG [Rural Business Enterprise Grant] program of USDA," explained Gallagher, saying that because stimulus money is now involved in funding such grants, the guidelines for submitting a grant application haven't yet been defined.

"This project is obviously going to be eligible, we just can't really write the application yet because we're still waiting for guidance. There have been communications with USDA, so they know this project is in the works," she said.

The feasibility study which is currently being conducted suggests that 10 or 11 jobs may be created should the county, the UCIDA, the HVADC, or some other not-for-profit entity take over the site, and then lease it out to a for-profit entity, which may or may not wind up being created by the county. By having the county take over the site in some capacity, Gallagher said, it could be more assured that jobs would be created and that the site would stay on the village's tax rolls. Gallagher also suggested that it was likely that the 60 or so jobs that Gillette Creamery currently employs would remain so even after their move.

Attempts to speak with representatives from Gillette Creamery for this story were unsuccessful as of press time.

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