Orange County plans Chester school conversion into tech training center

Orange County is turning Chester’s former Maple Avenue school into a tech training center aimed at adults who want a path into advanced manufacturing and facility work, with design set to start later this year and construction expected next year.

The county bought the old Chester High School building for $1 after the Orange County Legislature approved the deal on July 2, 2024, and County Executive Steven Neuhaus signed it July 8. The brick school on Maple Avenue opened in 1947, got a second section in 1965, was retired when Chester Academy opened on Hambletonian Avenue in 2004 and later served Orange-Ulster BOCES until 2019.

Neuhaus has described the next step as stabilizing the property and then moving into a phased renovation plan. The county planned to spend $2 million in 2026 to modernize the building for an advanced training center, and the Ways and Means Committee advanced that spending before it reached the full legislature.

The vision goes beyond classrooms. County Public Works Commissioner Erik Denega said the facility was intended for adult training in advanced manufacturing and advanced facility skills, with the county working to shape the program around employer needs. He also said the goal was not to duplicate Orange-Ulster BOCES or existing high school vocational programs in Pine Bush and Newburgh, but to fill a different lane in the local workforce pipeline.

That makes the Chester site more than a real estate reuse story. County officials are trying to turn a long-vacant public building into a place where students, career changers and incumbent workers could be trained for higher-value jobs, while giving manufacturers and other employers a local talent pool they can use without sending workers far from Orange County.

SUNY Orange has already signed on as a partner. College President Dr. Kristine Young said the school was collaborating with the county and backed the idea of apprenticeships, internships and hands-on advanced training that could connect directly to college-level learning.

The building’s future had been debated for years before the county stepped in. A 2019 referendum on its fate failed, and in 2024 Chester voters considered transferring the property to Orange County at no added taxpayer cost. The Chester Union Free School District kept ownership of the gymnasium and athletic fields, while county and district leaders argued that the alternative could have been sale, demolition or slow deterioration.

For Chester, the project gives the old high school a second life. For Orange County, it is a bet that a former classroom building can be repurposed into a workforce asset for advanced industry, with the payoff measured in jobs, apprenticeships and a tighter link between local training and local employers.