A Hudson Valley man is teaming up with Marist College students to try to make a difference at the Poughkeepsie riverfront, which remains locked up due to a legal battle between a developer and the city.

Robert Phillips joined the Poughkeepsie Riverfront Partnership in 2016.

Group members bill themselves as concerned residents who want to educate the public on what's going on along the waterfront, and to protect and revitalize the area.

An ongoing legal battle is underway over what the developer, Bonura Development, should be allowed to build on the 14-acre DeLaval property.

Neighbors have been waiting for the site to re-open since 2016.

Phillips said he’s attended multiple City Council meetings and reached out to Marist College for help. That’s when he started to team up with a whole class of students to try and achieve some progress.

"When I first was looking for an intern to help with the website, lo and behold, I find that Marist winds up partnering with us, and they wind up with a complete class full of students working on putting together a marketing plan, and fixing the website for us," Phillips said.

He, along with the rest of the class, teamed up to start a petition to raise more awareness.

"We're asking people to sign so that we can give to the administration and the common council, saying look, 'this is what we want from you. We want recreation, educational, board-related activities, and not a 50-person, 50-apartment building complex here,'" Phillips said. 

He sees a huge economic benefit to revamping the site for restaurants, shops and water recreation.

"When you look at the economic benefits of that, in the number of people working in these retail shops and commercial shops and office space and so on, and the amount of tourism that would be attracted," he said.

Students like Dylan McDermott took the business and marketing project seriously.

"So, a group of about 30 students or so and our class separate in four groups combined to help revamp the actions to, like, uplift the gate," he said. "As you can see, the gate is locked over here, and just help the people you know, get what they want."

The project took months of research and will eventually be presented to the City Council.

"I feel like it's such a big issue that I don't want to, like, I don't want to stop now," he said "And I don't know, I just want, I learned a lot because I found myself doing a lot more work than I anticipated. And I just found myself so engaged into the project that I just wanted to see our project fulfilled."

In a statement, city Administrator Marc Nelson said the site will remain closed until all legal issues surrounding the land are resolved.

Neighbors and now students are waiting to see what the future will bring.

"So, the economic benefits of having a three-story residential here, as opposed to having a waterfront site with residents, with restaurants and retail and activity going on, it speaks for itself," Phillips said.