Yeah, but…
Todd Shimkus, the executive director of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, agrees, largely, with the couple of people FoothillsBusinessDaily.com quoted in our post yesterday (read it here) about the announcement from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office that smaller gathering spaces, indoors and out, can open at 10% or 20% capacity, beginning April 1.
He agreed: “We’re moving in the right direction.”
Yeah, but, he said, “We don’t have the local testing capacity.”
The regulations, posted to the governor’s COVID website, say that most of the newly-opened venues are allowed to have people enter only if they have proof of vaccination or have received a negative result on a recent COVID test.
Saratoga, with spaces like the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Race Course, and other major outdoor venues will have to be able to rapid-test thousands of people a day if this plan is to work, Shimkus said.
One location currently in the county can conduct hundreds but not thousands of tests a day, Shimkus said--at $290 a pop.
As well, theme parks and other outdoor venues are opening without the testing requirement. The requirement is random and unfair, Shimkus argued.
Yesterday, we ran the first statement from SPAC PR, and when we asked for a clarification, it came after our deadline. The new statement calls the announcement “a huge breakthrough.”
“We are hopeful that we will be able to begin announcing programming plans for the first half of the Summer within the next few weeks,” Elizabeth Sobol, President & CEO of SPAC wrote in an emailed statement.
Yeah, but…
Judy Calogero, the director of the Glens Falls Local Development Corporation and a member of Mayor Dan Hall’s workforce looking at city development projects, has been against developing the empty lot along Bay Street at the intersection with Glen St. (Read all about it, here.)
The piece, recently subdivided from the larger parcel next door that includes the Traveller’s Insurance Tower and its parking garage, has been a target of the city.
Hall, Calogero and others hope the city can purchase it, keep it undeveloped and incorporate it into City Park, across Bay.
On the other side is developer Chris Patten, who has a contract to buy and develop the land.
He has brought ideas for buildings to the Glens Falls Planning Board twice and has gotten a lot of pushback both times. Earlier this month when he brought a simple drawing of a potential building on the site to the board, many on the board and most of the people in the public who spoke, said the building was too close to the historic Church of the Messiah and did not fit the historic nature of the site.
Patten is bringing a new plan that moves the building away from the church and that looks like the insurance building that, historically, sat on that very site. He says it fits the current zoning.
Yeah, but, Calogero said in series of interviews and emails, the size is wrong.
Patten has plans for many more small units in his four-storey design.
She pointed FoothillsBusinessDaily.com to the zoning code, General Commercial 1, (GC1, under subsection 220-17).
Under that zone, the way Calogero thinks it should be interpreted, though she is waiting to hear architects and engineers weigh in, and with the lot only 24,000 square feet, it can have a building with only 9, maybe 10 units.
The proposed building is about 17,000 square feet, which would run about $4.1 million at an estimated $245 per square foot to construct. That puts the units somewhere between $462,000 and $520,000 per unit to build.
Calogero admitted that everyone will have to wait and see what happens.
Stayed tuned…
Next week, the Bolton Planning Board will take up two interesting proposals:
Demolition of the Bonnie View Motel, which will be replaced by a large single-family, multi-building compound.
- Plans to reconstruct a building on the site of the old Lakeside Lodge and Grille. The restaurant burned down in September. The description of the new building, with a restaurant on the main floor and apartments above, sounds much like the original.