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MONTICELLO - Taking a step towards bring Woodstock into the next century, site owner Alan Gerry recently hired an international design firm to make his dream into reality.
Gerry confirmed Monday that he hired RTKL Associates of Baltimore, a far-flung company that is now one of the largest firms of its kind in the world.
Woodstock's several-thousand-acre property footprint is nothing compared to some other projects RTKL is currently working on: a former Naval Academy in Baltimore; the Sahl Hasheesh resort on the Red Sea in Egypt (complete with Bedouin camp, a Venetian port and a sunken city), an entertainment and retail center in Salvador, Brazil; a three-million-square-foot hotel and entertainment project in Indonesia and a 10-million-square-foot project outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Gerry, who purchased the Town of Bethel site and surrounding property in the past year, hopes to build a ''tourist destination'' made up of concert halls, a museum and other attractions.
He said RTKL was one of three or four consultants he would hire to deal with various aspects of the project. He said he would announce all the names soon.
RTKL's web page compares the company's myriad specialties to putting a thumb on a drop of mercury.
''Every time you think you've got it, the droplet transforms itself, takes on new shape...'' it said. ''And yet, in a curious way, it remains constant, consistent.''
The company has a similar history to Alan Gerry's former Cablevision Industries, a company he started out of the back of a television store more than 40 years ago. In 1995, Gerry sold it to Times-Warner for $2.6 billion.
RTKL began as a two-man office in 1946. It now has offices in Washington, D.C., Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong, with affiliations in Mexico, Germany and Australia.