By Paul Post
Washington County has a great deal of untapped tourism potential that could boost the local economy with more comprehensive, strategic promotional planning.
That’s what officials told local business and civic leaders during a presentation hosted by the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce at Sandy Hill Arts Center’s fifth-floor event space in Hudson Falls.
“Tourism may look a little different for us, but it exists and it’s definitely impacting the county,” said Laura Oswald, county director of economic development, planning and tourism. But a recently-obtained grant will fund a separate, new full-time tourism director’s position that’s expected to be filled in the coming weeks.
Washington County doesn’t have a world-class race track, performing arts center, theme park or popular summer resort town like Saratoga and Warren counties. There isn’t a single hotel and there are less than 100 motel units.
But Washington County Fair, which attracts more than 100,000 people annually, is the state’s third largest, and Hick’s Orchard in Granville draws thousands of patrons from throughout the region each weekend in autumn.
Likewise, countless people pass through towns such as Fort Ann, Whitehall, Greenwich, Cambridge and Salem en route to Vermont ski resorts in winter, and communities throughout the county host a variety of special events and festivals each summer. With better promotion, travelers would be encouraged to stop, see what’s available and spend more time and money at local shops, restaurants and businesses.
“Tourism metrics are typically measured by heads in beds, how many people check into hotels,” Oswald said. “Then you can create metrics that tell you, for every one person they probably stop at a gas station or go to a restaurant so you can estimate your economy.”
Because it has so little lodging, such information is hard to come by in Washington County. “What we do have is a significantly growing presence of short-term rentals,” she said.
County Administrator Melissa Fitch said Airbnb rentals generate considerable revenue for the county.
County Budget Officer and Hebron Supervisor Brian Campbell said roughly 20 percent of the county’s 29,000 housing units are short-term rentals now.
“Some of these places would never have been saved, fixed up or rejuvenated,” he said. “They’re buildings that would have just disappeared. Now they’re back to where they’re livable for people who want to rent them for a weekend. Eventually, they may go back on the market if their owners can make more money flipping than renting.”
Similar to tourism, Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert Henke, of Argyle, said a great deal of unnoticed home-based business has popped up in recent years, generating self-employment and tax revenue for the county.
“We did a survey recently and I don’t think there’s a single street in Argyle that doesn’t have at least two home-based businesses,” he said.
Mostly rural, small-town Washington County doesn’t project the same image of affluence as neighboring Saratoga and Warren counties. But Campbell said the county, thanks to pandemic-related stimulus money and skyrocketing sales tax revenue, has never been in better financial shape.
The county received more than $11 million as its share of American Rescue Plan Act funding, a $1.9 trillion federal program designed to help state and local governments impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Fitch said the county used most of this for much-needed capital projects.
“Supervisors tell me all the time that we’re a poor county,” Campbell said. “We’re not a poor county. Even though times have been tough, we came out of COVID almost unscathed. The amount of money that’s poured in is phenomenal.”
He said sales tax, mostly from online shopping, has increased $10 million from $20 million to $30 million during the past five years. “That’s huge,” he said.
During COVID, when people couldn’t leave home, residents shopped online instead. Many people also decided to use the Internet rather than drive to Glens Falls, Saratoga Springs or Clifton Park when gas prices were close to $4 per gallon.
Now, online shopping has permanently changed many peoples’ buying habits, keeping considerable extra sales tax revenue in the county.
“We’re really in good shape,” Campbell said. “It’s just trying not to spend it faster than you bring it in, just like your own budget at home.”
In November, the county adopted a $132 million budget for 2024.
However, Campbell said the county has direct control over less than 20 percent of this, as most is allocated to mandated state programs such as Medicaid, which costs $230,000 per week.
“It’s not just big things, it’s continual little things popping in,” Henke said.
For example, the state Labor Department now requires all employers, large and small, to provide a private room and unpaid break time for breastfeeding mothers to pump breast milk at work. “There are certain specifications and we had to find a place to build a room,” Henke said. “There’s no money in the budget for that. Mandates take away from other things we could be doing.”
“Our budget’s good for about four months from January 1 to April 1 because then the state budget comes out and ruins everything you did,” Campbell said. “This is like the calm before the storm. The state mandates everything they want you to do that you’d never do if they didn’t mandate it. Citizens are the most important part of the budget because they have to pay taxes. They just want to know that it’s going for something they need or they’re interested in. It’s not always that way because of mandates.”
“It’s becoming more of a challenge every year,” Fitch said.
Looking ahead, Campbell said Washington County is well positioned for new housing growth when GlobalFoundries moves forward with plans for a second, large semiconductor plant at Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta. Construction is expected to begin in the next few years creating thousands of new jobs.
“They’re running out of places to build houses (in Saratoga County) and people like to live rurally, they really do,” he said.
Once home to small farms and some centuries-old houses, Hebron now has a number of million-dollar estates, indicating a major shift in local demographics.
“It’s a quality of life issue,” Campbell said. “That’s what we try to do when we make budgets, is protect the quality of life. It’s hard to keep that if things are growing out of control or they aren’t growing at all. There’s a happy medium we’re trying to get to.”