Despite a struggling nationwide economy, new construction is planned to start soon at the New Hartford Business Park.
A town panel that oversees planning issues for the park will meet Thursday to discuss site review plans for a hotel and an office building, an agenda for the meeting shows.
Business park developer Larry Adler said Monday that ground likely will be broken this summer for construction of the buildings, which would house an 80- to 100-room Hampton Inn and Suites and a 25,000-square-foot office for Costello Eye Physicians & Surgeons and Mohawk Valley Urology.
| IF YO GO |
| The New Hartford Business Park panel will meet at 8:30 a.m. Thursday at
Butler Hall. In addition to a committee update, two site plans will be reviewed
— one for an office building and the other for a hotel. For information, call Planning Board Chairman Jerome Donovan at 797-2829. |
“It is not easy in these economic times,” he said. “But the good news is that it’s a great location and the infrastructure is in, and we’ve had people committed to seeing this through.”
Those projects previously had been discussed for the park, and in December, Adler said he hoped to break ground for them this spring. Asked what the delay had been, Adler said the projects were “on target.”
He said he now hopes the construction on the hotel will be completed a year after ground is broken, and that the doctors’ offices will be ready before that.
Town Planner Kurt Schwenzfeier, who is a member of the committee that oversees development at the park, said he was checking to make sure the two buildings fall within the domain of the panel.
It recently has come to light that The Hartford, which is currently the business park’s sole occupant, is not within the boundaries a 1999 town law delineated for the panel. Despite that, the panel, not the town Planning Board, dealt with planning-related issues for its construction.
“We are going to make sure whatever we review is in the scope of the district,” Schwenzfeier said.
Asked if he thought either structure might be outside the park’s boundaries, Schwenzfeier said it depended on which of several maps he looked at, and what the developer’s plans showed Thursday.
The meeting will be the first that is open to the public. Previously, the meetings had been closed, and no official minutes were taken. Last week, town Planning Board Chairman Jerome Donovan announced the meetings would henceforth be open.
Donovan, who also is chairman of the committee, said he would send the plans for the new buildings to the Planning Board if the projects were not in the district.
Adler said he was glad the process would be more open because the development of the business park is a positive for the community.
“I think that we are going to see some positive momentum and hopefully some positive results as a result of the public becoming more informed about what’s going on,” he said.
Calls to both Hampton Inns’ corporate headquarters and the two doctors’ offices were not returned.
