Kite’s Nest Blesses Ground of Future $14M Youth Education Campus in Hudson

Kite’s Nest, the Hudson-based center for youth education, marked a major milestone on November 1 with a groundblessing ceremony for its forthcoming ReGeneration Campus on the Hudson riverfront. The two-acre ecological campus, expected to open in mid-2027, will serve as a permanent home for the nonprofit’s expanding slate of youth-centered programming in environmental justice, arts education, and community leadership. The project has already drawn more than $7.1 million in state funding and raised $11.1 million toward a $14 million capital campaign goal.

Unlike a typical groundbreaking, the ceremony was framed as a moment of gratitude and collective intention. Nearly 200 community members, youth leaders, and partner organizations gathered to honor the land and celebrate a future shaped by young people. “This project represents a deep investment in the power, creativity, and leadership of young people,” says Kaya Weidman, Kite’s Nest co-executive director. “The ReGeneration Campus will be a permanent home where children and teens can thrive, where their voices are centered, and where they can lead the way in building more just and resilient communities.”

Founded in 2013, Kite’s Nest has served more than 2,000 young people through more than 250 programs—from environmental stewardship and food-justice initiatives to media production, arts programs, and paid youth employment. Its students have organized for housing justice, created mutual-aid structures, and developed youth-run food and sustainability projects—work that has made the organization a statewide model in youth empowerment and civic engagement.

The forthcoming 8,500-square-foot campus, designed by Jaklitsch Gardner Architects with interiors by Studio Cooke John and landscape design by the Office of Living Things, will include a learning kitchen, digital media and recording studio, exhibition space, arts workshop, and outdoor spaces for learning and community gathering. Accessibility and ecological design are central to the project, which will be fully electric and aligned with New York State climate-resiliency goals.

A rendering of Kite’s Nest’s forthcoming ReGeneration Campus by Jaklitsch Gardner Architects shows an open, light-filled learning hub nestled along the Hudson riverfront, with flexible indoor-outdoor spaces designed for creativity, collaboration, and connection to the land—a campus imagined with, and for, the young people who will shape its future.

Youth leaders were instrumental in shaping the design through the Spatial Justice Stewards advisory board, which helped guide decision-making from concept plans to interior finishes. “At Kite’s Nest, I learned that my voice matters and I feel at home,” says 16-year-old youth staff member Jayshelle Fermin Ventura. “This new campus means we’ll have a place where young people can go to learn, have fun, and become leaders together.”

State officials praised the project’s innovative approach. NYSCA Executive Director Erika Mallin called the campus “a place where imagination will be cultivated, and futures will be transformed,” while Empire State Development President Hope Knight noted the project will serve as “an anchor to the revitalization efforts underway in Hudson.”

Kite’s Nest Board Chair Lisa Arrastía underscores the broader vision: “This campus is not only a home for Kite’s Nest but a community anchor for generations to come. It models equitable and ecological development—spaces where young people can imagine and co-create a just future.”

Construction on the ReGeneration Campus begins in December, ushering in a new chapter for youth leadership and community-based climate education in Hudson.