Shaker Pointe at Carondelet, an independent living retirement community in Watervliet, N.Y., opened its doors to residents in 2011. Today with three phases now complete, the community offers several different living options to residents, all in the Shaker style with varied designs of apartment, courtyard, and individual cottage units.
Sponsored by the Society of the Sisters of St. Joseph and developed by Alchester Development LLC (Latham, N.Y.), the architecture firm of KDA Architects (Voorhees Township, N.J.) designed Shaker Pointe as 139 apartments, 12 cottage residences, and 11 courtyard units, each featuring unique design elements.
Shaker Pointe’s community space, The Pointe, includes a fitness center, pool, meditation room, activities studio, dining room, bistro, country store, barber shop, salon, massage room, library, in-house primary-care doctor’s office, and a restaurant that’s open to the public five days a week. The Pointe was built specifically with Shaker architecture in mind. The great room, a wide-open space with seating designed for meetings and recreation, is modeled after the Shaker communal buildings.
The approvals process began in 2007, when the organization was incorporated—just before the housing crash and Great Recession in 2008. The project team had to rework its plans to take a three-phased approach, and gained financing for each phase independently. This helped to inspire confidence for investors and it broke the project into more manageable parts.
Additional challenges were encountered by the site itself. Situated on land abutting the Hudson River in Albany County, the construction site included wetlands and a stream running through its center. There were parcels of buildable ground and nonbuildable ground, so KDA worked around the natural constraints to situate the different buildings: The main apartment buildings are on the largest parcel of land with other structures located on the other pieces of land.
The community, built by Lecesse Construction (Rochester, N. Y.), received its first LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for its Carriage Apartment Residences. Last year it was awarded the Platinum certification for its second phase, including the community center known as The Pointe and the 68-unit residential building known as Doane Brook. The community’s newest phase, a 56-unit residential building known as Spirit Tree, is also pursuing LEED certification.
Project summary
Completion date: May 31, 2015
Owner: Shaker Pointe at Carondelet Inc.
Sponsor: The Society of the Sisters of St. Joseph
Developer: Alchester Development LLC
Architect: KDA Architects
Interior design: KDA Architects
Engineering: Napierala Consulting Professional Engineers PC
Construction: Lecesse Construction
LEED Certification Consultants: Steven Winter Associates Inc.
Total building area: 30 acre site; 287,685 sq. ft. total area
Total Construction Cost: $54 million
