NoVo Foundation to build youth hub in Kingston

In an effort to encourage Kingston’s youth to stay in the city and find success locally, the NoVo Foundation is transforming a century-old building to create a youth hub.

“It [will be] a giant incubator for kids to build what they want, largely through business opportunities and being able to start their own businesses,” said Martin Kirk, NoVo’s senior projects coordinator. “We will have entrepreneurial support from financing to childcare.”

The foundation, operated by the youngest son of billionaire investor Warren Buffet, purchased the 70,000-square-foot building in Midtown Kingston located at the corner of South Prospect Street and Greenkill Avenue, from housing nonprofit RUPCO for $2 million.

RUPCO had purchased the former Metropolitan Life Hall of Records building, known as The Metro, in 2017 for just under $2 million and partially restored the once dilapidated building, including installing a new roof. RUPCO originally intended to use the building for various  community wealth-building projects, including housing a film and television sound stage and post-production studio in partnership with Stockade Works.

The NoVo Foundation, which is controlled by Peter Buffett and his wife, Jennifer, distributed more than $24 million to Kingston nonprofits, schools, activist groups, and other organizations in 2020. The Buffetts moved to the area in 2011.

“NoVo’s intention is to work with, and support, people and organizations who are passionate about helping Kingston become a radically more self-reliant, equitable and ecologically restorative community,” Buffet wrote in a 2021 blog post “A Letter to the Kingston Community.”

Kirk said that through community conversations, including weekly Zoom talks on Thursdays at 5 p.m.,  the private foundation has consistently heard that a major problem is the exodus of young people from the city who seek to build a future for themselves elsewhere.

“We’re going to spend the next year, as the initial building work gets done, having conversations and speaking to young people about their passions and what they want for their futures so we can put opportunities in the building for them that allow them to follow those paths,” said Kirk.

At the center of the building’s new future will be a 15,000-square-foot fabrication center, which draws inspiration from the Fab Foundation, an initiative out of MIT, which teaches and financially supports anyone passionate about making things. The fabrication center will be designed locally; conceptual designs are currently being developed by Dutton Architecture, in consultation with SUNY New Paltz.

“It (will be) a place of opportunity for them,” said Kirk. “They can find opportunities to stay in Kingston and make a life for themselves here.”

Although the building won’t be in full swing until 2024 while it continues to be restored and built, the next year will be used for local youth to share their needs to help shape The Metro’s offerings.

“What are the barriers standing between young people and a future they want now?” Kirk said he hopes they uncover by working directly with the youth in the coming months. “We need to listen to everyone and see what the barriers are and provide services that help them break through those.”

The NoVo Foundation will work closely with the Boys & Girls Club of Ulster County, which is located across the street from The Metro, for a youth-led design process this summer. Additionally, there will be opportunities for residents to participate in, and help create, the new future of the building.