PROJECT ARCHIVE
Kodak Hawkeye Regenerative Campus
Rochester, New York | 2025–2026
UC Studios prepared a preliminary redevelopment and feasibility framework for the former Kodak Hawkeye industrial campus in Rochester. The approximately 1.1-million-square-foot property contains historic and underutilized industrial buildings with significant environmental, structural, infrastructure, and market complexities. The site was evaluated as an integrated district with potential for historic adaptive reuse, research and technology facilities, offices, light industrial and production space, data infrastructure, housing, community uses, renewable energy, and supporting commercial activity.
The framework established a phased strategy beginning with environmental and structural due diligence, site stabilization, utility modernization, and reuse of the most viable historic buildings. As part of the feasibility approach, UC Studios explored the potential for new mass-timber load-bearing structures within selected historic building envelopes—creating a lower-carbon way to introduce contemporary uses while retaining the campus’s industrial character. Later phases considered an innovation and research district, mixed-income housing, neighborhood services, and a renewable district-energy system utilizing the site’s hydroelectric potential. The plan connects industrial-heritage preservation with brownfield recovery, employment creation, housing, technology, clean energy, public-private finance, and long-term tax-base growth.