ALTAMONT — The heavy, wet snow on Dec. 23 took down the roof in the center part of Altamont’s original train depot, which is located behind the 1897 train station that now serves as the village library.

Jeff Thomas, who owns the property, told The Enterprise on Tuesday that he had heard the roof had fallen in but had not yet been to see the damage.

“Our plan is to restore that, keep a section of it …,” he said of the historic depot. “We’d have it engineered and work from the inside out.”

He noted the original “gingerbread” trim, pieces of which are still intact on the board-and-batten building, and said it was an important part of Altamont history.

Last week, The Enterprise published a column by Mary Ellen Johnson on the Albany & Susquehanna Railroad that, in 1863, ushered in a new era for the village when trains started running to and from Albany. A picture of the old depot, just before the roof collapse, was featured with the column.

Thomas, who also owns the post office building on Park Street that backs up to the depot property, said he has been working with the United States Postal Service, which wants to expand the Altamont office, on a plan to build a new post office behind the current one.

“We’re doing a nice design with the post office,” Thomas said. He stressed that it was too early to release details.

The current office would stay open, he said, while the new, larger post office is being built behind it. Thomas would then raze the Eisenhower-era, mid-century office currently in use, he said.

Thomas, who lives in Knox on the Helderberg escarpment overlooking Altamont, has been active in village real-estate development, owning and upgrading what he named the Altamont Corners shopping plaza, which is on the other side of the railroad tracks from the old train station, and the Park House Apartments, and building the Brandle Meadows senior housing on the outskirts of the village.

He also owns the gateway-to-the-village property on Route 146, which is rented to the Broadview Federal Credit Union, formerly the State Employees’ Federal Credit Union before it merged with Cap Com.

Thomas said this week that he is sensitive to the concerns villagers raised in 2018 when he proposed a mixed-use development for the old depot property.

At that time, the 1.6-acre parcel was, according to Albany County assessment rolls, owned by Timothy Coughtry with a full-market value of $217,330. Current rolls show the same 1.6 acre parcel owned by One Twenty Park Street LLC, a limited liability company formed by Thomas, with a full-market value of $290,989.

Four years ago, Thomas had proposed constructing three stand-alone buildings on the land that would contain 26 one- and two-bedroom apartments with one building having 3,600 square feet of commercial space. The plan called for 49 off-street parking spots.

Some of the concerns that were raised about Thomas’s original proposal for the old depot property were worries about traffic entering and exiting past the library, the development not having enough parking spaces, the zoning not allowing just multi-family housing, and other traffic and safety concerns with more congestion in the center of the village.

History of original depot

The original depot in Knowersville, as Altamont was then called, was built in 1864.

“This building served as a combination freight and passenger station,” according to a history written by the late Roger Keenholts, former village historian, and posted to the library’s website. “As the village grew, the depot soon became an unofficial village hall and meeting place.

“The early station agents were also enterprising businessmen and conducted extensive business from the depot, selling building materials, feed and coal. The first agent, Henry Hawkins, served as the postmaster for Knowersville and the post office was located in the depot.

“In 1896, the railroad at last agreed to replace the 1864 structure. A contract was awarded to Hiram Schoonmaker, a local builder, to remove the original station some 400 feet south along the tracks and to build a new depot ….

“In the 1950’s, the building was leased out to the Albany County Highway Department as offices and storage. In December 1984, the property was sold to the Altamont Tile Company who erected an addition on the north end of the building and opened an office and showroom. The building was later purchased [by] the TEC Northeast Fire Systems.”

John Monaghan, who works for TEC Northeast, told The Enterprise on Tuesday that the company uses the newer brick addition but not the old wooden depot part of the building, leasing it from Thomas and formerly from Coughtry.

The company specializes in sales, service, and installation of fire-suppression systems.

Monaghan was last in the old depot part of the building six or eight months ago, he said, to clear out items that were stored there.

“I know it had a hole in the roof then,” he said.