TOWN OF NEWBURGH - When the Orange County Choppers needed to make a decision on building a new complex for their international headquarters, two factors that played a large role were where and how. 

The ‘where’ was the very busy area on Route 17K, near the Thruway, Interstate 84 and Route 300 in The Town of Newburgh. The ‘how’ was as green as possible.”

The local father and sons team opened their new $13 million state-of-the-art facility, which serves as their home office, TV studio to record their cable show, mechanics shop, and a retail store, just a few miles not far from their previous home in Montgomery. The new facility was constructed under strict environmental guidelines set by themselves, far exceeding LEED certification guidelines. 

The new 92,800 square foot facility is considered “one of the greenest buildings in the nation” by the United States Green Building Council, mostly due to its nearly 75 percent usage of recycled building waste materials.  It also surpassed NYSERDA’s building code guidelines for environmental construction by 52 percent.

Choppers’ founder Paul Teutel, Sr. said staying in Orange County and ‘going green’ were his major concerns for the company.

“We’re home bodies; this is kind of where we started. For me, this has been a humbling experience,” he said. “By starting with nothing and building up something, where you are, why would you want to leave?”

Orange County Chamber of Commerce President John D’Ambrosio and County Executive Edward Diana both honored the hard work by Teutel and his family in constructing the new state-of-the-art building, and thanked them for staying in Orange County.

“The folks are world renown at this point in time and having them build this headquarters here as opposed to anywhere else, because everywhere would have wanted these folks, I think this is big for our community, big for our state.”

Diana, meanwhile, just got back from vacation. “The first people I saw walking off the plane had Orange County Chopper t-shirts on. I went to the hotel and the first guy I talked so, when I told him I was from Orange County, said, ‘Are you from that Choppers place?’ They put us on the map. They had the opportunity to go anywhere in the United States. They decided to stay home. There’s no better story that than.”

Teutel said there are also many other projects in the works for the property, adjacent to a new hotel, including a restaurant in the near future. 

 “American Choppers” has been airing on the Discovery Channel for six years now, and is viewed in over 160 countries around the world; Teutel said he feels they will sign a new contract once the current one expires at the end of this year, mainly due to “the fact that we are their number one rated show for some time now.”