Managing Partner Joe Bonilla writes in the Albany Times Union about the impact of the College of St. Rose’s closure in Albany and how it will affects the Pine Hills neighborhood.
An excerpt:
There’d been a rumor around town over the past five to six years that Saint Rose could close, but it never seemed more than a parlor conversation. The college still had more than 2,200 students and hundreds of staff and faculty — surely, like any smaller liberal arts college, it has its challenges, but to the degree of closure?
The hammer came down on Thursday, Nov. 30. Rich and I cut the ribbon for our newest location, at Slip 12 in the Warehouse District. Shortly after, we heard the news: Saint Rose is closing.
My first thoughts were just the tragedy of it all. One of our customers who came in after the closure was official was a professor. She had gone to Saint Rose as a student, then was a graduate assistant, and eventually became a faculty member. She had known no other home than Saint Rose. One of our staff members, who is studying speech therapy, will need to relocate from the area, maybe to SUNY New Paltz, to complete his studies since that program doesn’t exist up here.
There is the human cost of the decision, but also, as with any bomb or disaster, there is the blast zone.
“Commentary: On Upper Madison, bracing for the Saint Rose shock wave,” Albany Times Union, Dec. 10, 2023
Read the full op-ed via the Albany Times Union.
