Planning board expresses issues with TL Crossroads Hotel proposal

The Tupper Lake Planning Board begins to question planners of the Tupper Lake Crossroads Hotel project planners February 26 during the planning board’s monthly meeting. (Rich Rosentreter photos)

By Rich Rosentreter

The Tupper Lake Planning Board hosted a preliminary review of the proposed Tupper Lake Crossroads Hotel project February 26 at the town hall and following the presentation several board member expressed concerns and the representatives agreed that they will continue to work on the plans.

Two of the key issues dealt with was that the porch design that was different than the original proposal and parking concerns.

The presentation

Jacob Wright, president of Skyward Hospitality, a hotel management company, said he had told the board previously that he would return with a team and he did just that as he was accompanied by Andy Allison of AJA Architects and Andy Rymph from The Chazen Companies.

“Part of our goal today is there’s two major items that we have to address and that’s height and parking,” Wright began. “We’re going to need a variance permit from the APA on height.

He said he visited the APA office informally a few weeks ago to make them aware of the project and the need for a variance.

“Preliminarily, it seemed that we’ll able able to get through that,” he said. “On the parking we are going to need a variance because there’s going to be a restaurant and bar.”

Wright said that although the hotel plans to have 22 employees and 11 parking spots would be what is needed but only six have been designated for employees, however that won’t be a factor since the workers will come in shifts and will not all be at the site at once.

Betsy Lowe and Nancy Howard were among those at the February 26 planning board meeting.

“Obviously not all of the employees will be on site at the same time,” he said.

Wright also asked the town to consider that most of the restaurants that already exit on Main Street do not have specific parking areas.

Part of the challenge that any town or village has with more urban setups or site planes is do you want the town to a parking lot or do you want it to be more pedestrian access. That’s our argument as to where we are at with the parking.”

“This is our first meeting with substantial information so we’d like to get as much feedback as possible,” Wright said. “There’s certainly things that we missed and there’s certainly things that you’re thinking about that we probably haven’t at this point.

Wright then handed it over to the professionals who accompanied him, the first being Allison, who first explained some details of the structure.

“The right side of the building is where the functions of the hotel will be such as check-in and offices. The entire left side is really dedicated to the restaurant and that was by design,” he said, adding that the idea of having outdoor seating for the restaurant is meant to liven the corner area. “It was really sort of the key thing about this project” and the proposed open space on the corner is both “good for the public and guests who are staying at the hotel.”

Rymph provided some historic building photos to give a context for aspects of the current hotel plans.

“One of the goals is to make the building seem like its always been there. We wanted to have a historic building perspective,” he said, and the Red Line Inn in Stockbridge was one planners kept on going back to as to how it sits in that town.

“One of the things that really makes that thing sing is the front porch area on the corner and that’s one of things that led us to our thoughts,” he said. He also gave Paul Smiths Hotel as an example, citing its big white block and has a big front porch that made it warm and inviting. “We really picked up on some of those clues and use it in our project.”

“The big thing that makes these buildings work is the proportion and scale of the windows,” he said.

Planning board input

Wright, established he also represents the builders of the hotel being built in Saranac Lake, then opened the meeting up to input from the local planning board and Chairman Shawn Stuart started the questioning.

“It’s certainly a great building and it’s a great spot for it. It’s exciting to see some development in Tupper Lake going on. The front of the building looks nothing like what you came here with two months ago, the elevation of the porches,” he said, then asked what was the thought process that led to that change.

“Really the layout of the porches have remained the same, the one thing we did have to do was cut back on this porch (pointing) a bit because of that DOT right-of-way. We wanted to make it more grander but we would get over the top of that DOT right-of-way line and we didn’t want to do that,” he was told.

“That is something we can still work on,” he said. “We originally had some second story balconies on here as well but again the size of the building we couldn’t. There were some meeting rooms up on the second floor, but because of where the setbacks were we couldn’t make the room counts work and still have meeting rooms up on that second floor, so we had to pull back from those two as well.”

“I think the porches are what gives it the historical context,” Stuart said. “I’m not really getting the feel of the porch. It really looks more like a car port than a porch.”

Board member Dave St. Onge supported the concerns about the porch.

“I agree with Shawn about that second story porch. It does add quite a bit to it. Now I understand you couldn’t do it all the way around , but it would certainly be nice to see that second story porch,” he said, adding that he realizes the difference between artistic rendering.

One of the representatives of the project agreed.

“I actually agree. It could be a nice touch,” he said.

Board member Jim Merrihew also started by reinforcing the porch issue.

“Four of five historic hotels had second story porches, which are beautiful. To be quite honest with you ... a few months ago, I was truly excited about the building. When the we got the first set of drawings I was totally disappointed. I won’t say I was insulted, but I was really disappointed with that first set of drawing that came in,” Merrihew said, as he focused on the potential aesthetics of having second story porches. “Coming down the street it would be fantastic. And even though it only serves four or five rooms or whatever instead of conference rooms, that there is gorgeous.

“I don’t disagree with you. I think it would add to it, we just have to be really careful as to how much… all of the other buildings were four story buildings,” the representatives answered.

Board member Jan Yaworski was next and started by saying she too agreed about the porch, and inquired about the possibility of raising the height of the building.

The planners told her that would not be a viable option as having a higher building would create accessibility issues, among other things.

“I would raise this thing four feet up in the air ... but zoning tell me we can’t, the APA tells me we shouldn’t and my conscience tells me that there’s a whole population out there who totally hate that stuff,” she was told.

The conversation then shifted to the issue of parking as Scott Snyder was next to make inquiries.

“My main concern is with the parking,” he said, adding that he understands the ratio formula used and the employee parking logic. “I think that relying solely on on-street parking for the restaurant and bar patron, think you’re going to find a lot of the time you’re gong to find hotel guests unable to find parking and mainly because there’s already a lack of available parking in the neighborhood in general as it is.

“That is the challenge ahead of the project I think is to strike that right balance, and it’s not unique to this project,” he was told. “Every town that has an urban core deals with this. You look at it from an or scientific or engineering standpoint and you say it will never work, but yet it always works. We’ve looked at ideas such as parking garages and underground parking but every time you do that there’s no project to be had because the costs are just astronomical. And also for a downtown core you don’t really want missing teeth. If you think about the buildings and creating a density downtown in a village you don’t want to create big parking islands because that takes away from the character of the village. It’s always trying to get that balance.”

Another planner chimed in and said, “The vast majority of the time you are not one-hundred percent full so you don’t need the maxed out parking.”

“I personally think the lack of parking is a good thing,” Shawn Stuart said. “If they have to park down by the post office or the funeral home that means they have to walk down Park Street to get to their destination and that’s a good thing.”

“We understand that’s an issue... but there’s not much space and there’s not much we can do,” the planner added.

Merrihew then took a moment to pose a parking scenario.

“It’s the holiday week in the winter, Christmas time, and it’s ten below outside, and I’m the last guy in at eight o’clock at night and there’s no on-street parking, what’s the front desk going to tell me when the parking lot is full?” he asked. “Do you have a plan?”

The answer he was given was “valet parking.” “But it wouldn’t be all the time.”

“We think ahead and we have our forecast.”

“As long as you have a plan that can go out to the public,” Merrihew said. “I love this project by the way!”

“We love constructive criticism,” was a planner’s reply.

Merrihew continued with a scenario of coming to the hotel via state Route 3 and The Junction, mentioning he knows there is a proposed sign in place.

“I love your sign, but I don’t see where I know where to pull over to unload,” he said. “It’s about fifty feet to the door from the parking lot. What is going to make me pull in there?”

“Our sense is that when you pull into the parking lot, you’re going to have seen the front door, you’re also going to see that side entrance and go right over there,” he was told, and some of the issues Merrihew mentioned were just “some of the inconveniences of the site. But I see where you’re coming from on that.”

Merrihew also pointed out an area in the parking lot that has the potential to become a bottleneck if there are simultaneous deliveries, waste removal and cars coming and going. “That might be, I don’t know, twice a year. “I’m sure you guys have talked about this.”

“We recognize that’s a busy, messy corner, but we’re going to have to manage it,” was one response.

Stuart retorted with a reminder as to the nature of the Crossroads Hotel.

“We have to remember that this is a boutique hotel, it’s not a 350 room Hampton Inn, so there’s only so many people pulling up and checking in,” Stuart said.

“All of the questions that you guys are raising are all valid and are the same questions that we’re wrestling with,” a planner said. “Given a couple more thousand square feet to work with we might have some solutions.”

Toward the end of the presentation, Stuart brought up other valid points, one being the view from Walgreens and said the building looks “institutional.”

“We can address that,” planners said.

“It would be great if you gave us some alternatives,” Stuart said. “You haven’t given one except for valet but where are you going to take the cars? Saranac Lake? What are your options? Tell us how you’re going to fix it.”

The sign

Yaworski asked about the Crossroads Hotel sign that is proposed for the top of the building.

“Right now it’s more of an idea,” she was told. “The idea is that these would be free-standing letters. Not back lit. There’d be some type of screening behind it so there would be some type of contrast, we kind of like a darker color for the lettering and the screening might be a metal. Maybe we’ll have some type of down-played lighting. At night I want this building to be subtly lit. This is a very early idea for the signage concept, and we will be back with a full signage concept.”

“We wanted to get in with height and parking and storm water and make sure we’re going in the right direction,” planners added. “We do this a lot in different communities and every community is different.”

Next steps

The planners stressed the purpose of the preliminary meeting with the planning board.

“This is to show you something real about the project and then come into the next meeting with the seeker documents that have been submitted for your review,” one planner explained.

“Our action items after we leave this meeting are to get seeker going, finalize, get storm water going, get application in with the APA (Adirondack Park Agency), start contacting DOT (Department of Transportation), DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) and really get to work on what we need to do legally. This is early in the process. We’re coming back.”

“We’re sitting here today and if parking is not going to work, the sooner the better to know about things of that nature,” planners added. “It’s really isn’t going to be this board that could be a deal breaker, it would be the ZBA because they’re the ones who are going to authorize and approve the variances or not.”

The planners specified that the planning board is going to give a recommendation to the zoning board regarding building height and parking issues.

Stuart added that the board plans to hire local attorney Kirk Gagnier to review project materials and review proceedings.