The most visible change in Arlington this fall is in the Juliet building at 60 Raymond Avenue. The block's redevelopment plan was drawn to keep that building's front, and Giulia opened inside it on September 8. The 2.24 acres behind it are a different story. Plans for that land have moved through a lot-line approval and a state brownfield application, which the DEC has received but not yet accepted. No building approvals appear in the record so far. So from now until the Holiday Festival on December 5, the strip across from Vassar runs on the storefronts already there, plus one new place at its corner.
A new tenant in the building the plan keeps
Chronogram's October profile of Giulia traces the Juliet's history. It was built as a movie house in the 1940s and became a billiards hall in the 1990s and 2000s. Vassar later bought it for its campus store, which still operates just to the right of the restaurant. Giulia's co-owners, Giovanni Ilardi and Michael Purcell, also run Spettro, the Italian gastropub around the corner.
The restaurant runs on two schedules under one roof. In the daytime it's counter service at Caffe Giulia, with an egg and cheese on brioche for $9, olive oil cake for $6 and espresso drinks. Lunch adds focaccia sandwiches and 18-inch New York-style sourdough pizzas. In the evening the hosts start seating guests, and the menu adds scratch-made pastas, cocktails and an Italian wine list. Pizzas and pastas both run $18 to $25. The Chronogram piece singles out the Classic Chicken Parm sandwich at $15. In the same article, Purcell describes the crowd since day one as "local regulars, students, families, and multi-generational groups."
Giulia is open daily from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and again from 4 to 9 p.m. It's closed Mondays. Spettro is also closed Mondays. It serves dinner from 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, plus brunch from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The Loeb Art Center across the street is closed Mondays as well. On Mondays, then, the new Italian spot, its sister restaurant and the free museum on campus are all dark at the same time.
The strip the new arrival joins
Vassar's Arlington dining guide lists a long row of places along Raymond Avenue:
- Dumpling King at 8 Raymond and Hurricane Grill & Wings at 9
- Fika & Hygge and Saba, side by side in Suites B and C at 21 Raymond
- Chan's Peking at 26 and Thai Spice at 28
- The Crafted Kup at 44, Twisted Soul at 47 and Bagel World at 49
Around the corner, the same guide lists Savona's Trattoria at 1 Collegeview Avenue and La Cabanita at 763 Main Street. The Arlington Business Improvement District lists All Shook Up, a café and juice bar, at 44 Raymond.
Fika & Hygge is the newest name on that list after Giulia. The Poughkeepsie Journal reported that it soft-opened at 21 Raymond in March 2025 and held its grand opening that May. Two openings in about eighteen months, both on Raymond's frontage. That's how the district has been adding places lately. New tenants have filled existing storefronts, and no new buildings have gone up.
What the paperwork behind the Juliet actually says
The larger plan belongs to Arlington Capital Investors LLC. According to The Miscellany News, Vassar College is a 50 percent investor in the partnership. In December 2025, the student paper described plans to redevelop 2.24 acres into two three-story buildings with about 150 apartments, roughly 25,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and an underground garage. The application it cited said the old buildings on the site would be demolished. The exception was the Juliet building fronting Raymond and Collegeview Avenues, though even its rear portion was slated to come down.
That application projected demolition from October 2026 through February 2027. Construction would then start in May 2027 and finish by June 2028. In the same Miscellany News article, Vassar Vice President for Finance and Administration Bryan Swarthout said the initial design was "too expensive" and was being reworked. He added that "the schedule is really uncertain."
Since then, the public record has added three dated steps:
- July 16, 2026. The Town of Poughkeepsie Planning Board voted 5–0 to grant conditional approval to merge ten parcels into one. The parcels are 46, 48 and 50 Raymond Avenue, 3–7 and 9 Collegeview Avenue, and 10 through 18 Lagrange Avenue. The meeting minutes say the merger is meant to help the project gain acceptance into the state's Brownfield Cleanup Program. The approval has to be filed with the Dutchess County Clerk by January 12, 2027.
- September 18, 2026. A complete Brownfield Cleanup Program application appears in the DEC's document directory under site C314139.
- September 23, 2026. The DEC published a public notice saying it had received the application for the "Arlington Business District Redevelopment" site at 50 Raymond Avenue. Comments were due by October 23, 2026.
Read in order, those steps describe a submitted application now waiting on the state's decision. The notice says the state received the application, not that it accepted it. And the lot-line vote combined parcels. It didn't approve buildings. No site plan for the redevelopment appeared on the Planning Board's September 17 agenda. Anyone who wants to read the full application can find copies online through the DEC link above or in person at the Adriance Memorial Library, 93 Market Street.
A separate, smaller proposal for 35–37 Raymond Avenue appeared on the Planning Board's August 20 agenda. It called for a renovation and upper-story addition with two commercial tenants and up to seven residences, but the agenda marked the item "TO BE ADJOURNED."
The block's calendar through December
Plans for the next few years are still moving through review. Meanwhile, the next seven weeks fill up with dated events on the block and across the street. Most of the Vassar events below are listed as free and open to the public.
| Date | What | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| Thu., Oct. 29 | Arlington Farmers Market, the last date on the BID's calendar | 3 to 7 p.m. |
| Fri., Oct. 30 | Boos and Blooms at the Greenhouse | Vassar, 2 to 5 p.m. |
| Sun., Nov. 1 | The Play of Opposites, Thomas Sauer on piano | Vassar, 3 p.m. |
| Sat., Nov. 7 | America at 250: The Vassar College Chamber Singers | Vassar, 7:30 p.m. |
| Thu., Nov. 12 | Screening and discussion, "How Do You Say Bagel in Mohican?" | Vassar, 6 p.m. |
| Sun., Nov. 15 | Family Fun at the Loeb | Loeb Art Center, 1 to 2:30 p.m. |
| Tue., Nov. 17 | A Conversation with Michelle Zauner | Vassar, 5:30 p.m. |
| Sat., Nov. 21 | Vassar College Orchestra | Vassar, 7:30 p.m. |
| Sat., Dec. 5 | Arlington Holiday Festival | Arlington, noon to 5 p.m. |
| Sat., Dec. 5 | A Service of Lessons and Carols | Vassar, 7 p.m. |
The Arlington Holiday Festival is the date the whole district works toward. The BID's listing promises the annual eggnog crawl, a tree lighting, local vendors and a parade featuring Chris Marino from Q92. The festival wraps up at 5 p.m., and Lessons and Carols starts across the street at 7. That leaves two hours in between, during dinner service at both Giulia and Spettro.
Two Vassar events require reservations: "Cabaret," running November 5 through 7, and the November 14 anniversary reading of Thornton Wilder's "The Long Christmas Dinner."
The museum hours that outlast the season
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free. It's open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and from September through May it stays open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays. That puts a free gallery a short walk from Giulia's evening service one night a week.
One of the current shows is about this place. "Common Ground: Art and Infrastructure in Poughkeepsie" runs through January 31, 2027. "The End of Photography" runs through February 28, 2027, and "Photo-Design: Persuasion, Critique, Fantasy" through January 31. "Atelier 17: Myths in Motion" closes January 17. The museum closes from December 24 through New Year's Day and reopens January 2. If the holiday stretch is when out-of-town guests arrive, the weeks before Christmas Eve are the window to bring them.
The county clerk filing deadline for the lot-line merger, January 12, 2027, falls during the run of those same exhibitions. Until then, the merger stays conditional and the brownfield application stays under DEC review.
If you own near Raymond Avenue and want to know how a project still under review fits into your own plans for the house, One Stop Realty can walk you through the public filings and what each stage means. We represent our clients exclusively, never both sides of a deal. Schedule a free consultation.
