Town welcomes new park

Town welcomes new park Land bought from nearby orchards a showcase for "river town"

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer Click byline for more stories by writer. First published: Friday, October 17, 2008

CLIFTON PARK — That crunching sound off Riverview Road is the beginning of the first town-owned park with access to the Mohawk River. The town broke ground this week on Riverfront Park, 6 acres just west of Brian Drive, scheduled to be completed this winter. In addition to canoe and kayak access to the river, the park will feature a picnic area and about 700 feet of trails, said Jennifer Viggiani, the town's open space coordinator said at a Tuesday ceremony. Clifton Park will pay about 40 percent of the nearly $500,000 cost, with the rest coming from state and county grants. The land was purchased for about $202,000 from the owners of nearby Riverview Orchards, Isabel and Joel Prescott, in 2006, $100,000 of which came from the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors' farmland and open space protection program. "Clifton Park has always been a river town," Supervisor Phil Barrett said. Carmella Mantello, executive director of the state Canal Corp., said the park is about not just recreation but recognizing that taking advantage of the riverfront "is also about economic development, tourism." Mantello said the Clifton Park project, which received $180,000 from the Canal Corp.'s Erie Canal Greenway Grant Program, was one of 54 projects funded out of 90 applicants. Construction is beginning now because the land is firmer in the fall, making it easier for the heavy machinery to maneuver, officials said. In addition to buying the parkland from the Prescotts, the town also spent nearly $800,000 last year to purchase the development rights to some 87 acres of the family's land around the nearby orchards, preserving it from commercial and residential development, Viggiani said. Isabel Prescott said she was glad to be able to work with the town to preserve open space and farmland for future generations. "We don't have a lot of it left in Clifton Park," she said, "so I feel like it's really been a privilege for me to work with the town of Clifton Park just to save a little bit more of it." Clifton Park also has the roughly 800-acre Vischer Ferry Nature & Historic Preserve, which is adjacent to the river but owned by the Canal Corp. If you're headed there by water, the park is located just across the river from the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. Construction began Monday and is expected to take between two and three months, officials said. Jordan Carleo-Evangelist can be reached at 454-5445 or by e-mail at jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com.