Hampton Inn gets preliminary OK for New Hartford Business Park

By ELIZABETH COOPER

Posted Jun 28, 2010 @ 08:16 PM

Last update Jun 29, 2010 @ 12:17 AM

NEW HARTFORD —

The preliminary site plan for the proposed Hampton Inn & Suites hotel for the New Hartford Business Park was passed by the town Planning Board Monday evening.

But some Planning Board members balked at the fact that there were aspects of the plans that did not fit with requirements set forth in the zoning rules governing the Business Park.

Issues raised at Monday’s meeting ranged from frontage and lighting, to parking and signage.

“I think it behooves us to be very deliberative in this review,” Planning Board member Jerome Donovan said.

But Business Park Developer Larry Adler protested, saying that the requirements made the park “pretty undevelopable.”

He also said the national hotel chain had standard designs that it did not like to deviate from.

Until this year, plans at the Business Park were reviewed by a committee of town staffers. The Hampton Inn project is the first the Planning Board will review.

Planning Board Chairman Elis DeLia pointed to the fact that under the guidelines, the Planning Board had discretion to grant waivers, and could do so for the hotel.
“I believe it is worthy of the waivers,” he said.

Town Supervisor Patrick Tyksinski, who attended the meeting, said he just hoped the Business Park would grow.

“We want to have that park be developed,” he said. “With the hotel there, it will start attracting more business.”

The plans

The new hotel would have a footprint of about 21,000 square feet and include 87 rooms. It would occupy about 3.4 acres of land, Adler said.

If all goes according to plan, construction could start this year, he said.

A spokeswoman for Hampton Inns said in an email that because its hotels are franchised, the specific hotel owner would be the one who would answer questions about the plans.

Though the spokeswoman had forwarded the Observer-Dispatch’s questions to the owner, no response was received by press time.

Now that the preliminary plan has been approved, it will be reviewed by interested agencies that could include the Mohawk Valley Water Authority, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Oneida County Planning Department.

After that, the plans and comments from the agencies will again go before the Planning Board, DeLia said.

Route 840 impact

Projects in the Business Park have long been delayed as area officials tussled over whether the park should have direct access to busy state Route 840.

Adler said the fact that plans for access to Route 840 were moving forward had helped get the hotel project on track again.

“There is a positive feeling about the potential break in access of 840,” he said.
A proposed building for Costello Eye Physicians & Surgeons and Mohawk Valley Urology was cancelled because of doubts over whether the access would ever be created.

State Department of Transportation spokesman Anthony Ilacqua said his agency was awaiting a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement from the town on the access.

“We are waiting for that and we will review it,” he said.