Miller Design via Chris Patten (2021)
Glens Falls Developer Chris Patten will be back in front of the Glens Falls Planning Board this April with a full-color plan to place a 21-unit apartment building on the corner of Bay and Glen streets downtown.
In an interview yesterday, he said his plan fits the codes for the property, and the building intentionally looks like the insurance building that stood on that corner when Glens Falls was named “Hometown USA” by Look magazine in 1944.
When he appeared in front of the planning board in early March, planners said his drawings were incomplete and some said the corner should not be developed because the open space currently there fits with the historic nature of the Glen and Bay street intersection.
Named “Parkview Square,” his plan shows a 4-storey building with a brick-and-block exterior and columns on the front and sides.
"I got the flag stand right up in the middle of it," Patten said.
He said that the impermeable surface--the building and parking lot--of the property is less than 65% of the lot’s square footage. The rest, about 37% he said, was open greenspace, but it’s landscaping, not park. The offer to give the city about 44% of the property is off the table he said.
Patten has been in a tug-of-war with the city over the undeveloped land along Bay Street. Patten worked with the owners of the Monument Square Tower, where the Traveller’s Insurance building and their parking garage stand, to sell him the parcel, so long he could build on it.
The city has tried to stop development and asked 333 Glen Street Associates, the owners, to sell to the city which would incorporate it into City Park. City Park sits just across Bay Street.
Mayor Dan Hall had no comment for this story.
Patten and Kevin Lynn, of 333 Glen Street Associates, say they are in a contract to sell if Patten can get a workable plan through the city’s planning process.
Patten said the plans pulled building a little closer to the corner, away from The Church of the Messiah, a historic church on Glen Street next door to the open parcel. The plans keep all the trees on the property. The building is all apartments because they require fewer parking spaces by code than commercial space does.
Planners and people opposed to the project earlier this month at the planning board meeting brought up problems with the design of the building, its proximity to the church, and the lack of parking space.
"We've been listening to the planning board members. We've been listening to the people,” he said yesterday. "For all those reasons, we should conform.”
He has retained attorney John Lapper to work with him, he said. Lapper represented 333 Glen Associates as they subdivided the property earlier this year. Miller Designs has drawn the elevations of the building.
"If it doesn't get approved, this story will get a little more intriguing,” he said. A lawsuit against the city is "100% not off the table."