A consulting firm hired by the city to explore the potential for housing development at the city’s underutilized business park will hold a meeting next month to solicit input from the public. Representatives of Buro Happold will meet in Council Chambers at City Hall from 6-7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 13 when they will go over details of the site, possible approaches to redevelopment and answer questions from the public.

The Kingston Business Park opened at 370-384 Hasbrouck Ave. in 1998 and is owned and operated by the Kingston Local Development Corporation. The business park occupies about 50 acres of a 107-acre parcel of rugged terrain overlooking the Hudson River. The facility was intended as a “shovel-ready” site that could accommodate up to five light manufacturing operations occupying 300,000 to 500,000 square feet of interior space. Intended to attract manufacturing businesses back to the area following the departure of IBM from the city in the mid-1990s, the park never lived up to its potential. After years of businesses moving in and out, the park currently has just two tenants, Howmet Aerospace and Community Manufacturing Solutions.

Earlier this year, Mayor Steve Noble floated the idea of repurposing a portion of the business park for residential use. Last month, following the issuance of a Request for Proposals, the city chose U.K.-based engineering and design firm Buro Happold to carry out a feasibility study on the plan. The work will include assessing the site to determine how much and what type of housing could work there, examining how the new “Kingston Forward” zoning code could impact development and looking at the potential for commercial development or support services to complement the site.

“To combat our housing shortage here in Kingston, we are exploring areas where we might be able to increase our housing stock, and are hopeful that the Kingston Business Park could be an ideal site,” said Noble. “We look forward to hearing from the community at this public meeting and discussing the topographical challenges at the Kingston Business Park site. We are looking to Buro Happold, with the community’s input, to create a forward-thinking approach.”

The study is part a flurry of projects and proposals focused on Downtown Kingston after years of working to address housing and infrastructure issues in the Midtown neighborhood. The new emphasis on Downtown development includes a proposal to create 200 units of housing in a mixed-use development built on a long-vacant parcel adjacent to Route 9W and a study to look at ways of enhancing bike and pedestrian access to the Downtown business district from the Kingston Housing Authority’s Rondout Gardens complex on the far side of 9W.