TRR photo by David Hulse Heavy holiday weekend traffic, pictured here on June 29, could become the norm with further growth now anticipated on the “Kiamesha Corridor” of Route 42. (Click for larger image)

‘Kiamesha Corridor’... the new miracle mile?

By DAVID HULSE

KIAMESHA — Tony Cellini loves to talk about growth in the Town of Thompson.

After all, there’s an interstate (planned I-86) coming to town, up to four possible Indian casinos in the works and a new corporate park in Rock Hill. He’s almost bubbling about a planned new 250-room resort and 18-hole golf course at the former Laurels in Sackett Lake, and then there’s the new $400,000 sewer line the town is installing for one of the county’s largest employers, Sullivan Diagnostic.

But Route 42 in Kiamesha is in the center of it all, the “Kiamesha Corridor,” he calls it. The corridor is beginning to resemble Silver Lake, outside Middletown, when Ed Lloyd built his shopping center out on Route 211 in the middle of pasture lands in the Town of Wallkill.

Cellini, supervisor since 1994 and town board member since 1974, has been in the middle of the changes in Kiamesha. Along with his ongoing efforts to bring Indian gaming to town, he was deeply involved in bringing the Wal-Mart Superstore to town at its nearby Anawana Lake Road site, and predicted its arrival when most observers scoffed at the idea.