SARANAC LAKE – The owner of the Hotel Saranac has dropped a bombshell on the eve of a key vote by the village Board of Trustees on the proposed Lake Flower hotel project.

In an 800-word Guest Commentary submitted to the Enterprise today and set to be published Thursday, Fred Roedel III says Lake Flower Lodging LLC’s proposed 93-room, four-story, upscale hotel and spa on Lake Flower Avenue could saturate the market with too many rooms and limit the success of both it and the Hotel Saranac, which New Hampshire-based Roedel Companies is in the process of restoring.

“Potentially adding 90 more rooms with another like hotel project would not measurably increase the demand for lodging in Saranac Lake, but it would, without question, lower the reliability of success for both projects,” Roedel wrote.

–

Timing

Roedel’s stance comes at a critical time for the Lake Flower Spa and Resort, led by developer Chris LaBarge of Malone. The village board has scheduled a public hearing at 5:30 p.m. Monday on a zoning change for the project. A decision by the board could come at that same meeting or sometime soon thereafter.

Roedel, who didn’t immediately return a message seeking additional comment, is obviously aware of the timing. The commentary is titled, “Is two too many? That’s the question the village board needs to consider when it votes Monday.” The text of the op-ed says the board’s vote will have a broad impact on the community.

“The legal aspects of this vote will be left to the board and the litigators, but you should understand that the future development of Saranac Lake could be at stake,” Roedel wrote.

Roedel’s commentary is also a stark contradiction to what he told the Enterprise in November, when asked if the Lake Flower hotel would compete with a restored Hotel Saranac.

“Are we concerned about another hotel being built? No we’re not,” Roedel said then. “If the demographic and the market conditions exist, everybody will be good. We can’t worry about other hotels.”

–

Connections

Roedel and LaBarge are by no means strangers. The construction wing of Roedel Companies, ROK Builders, which Fred Roedel III leads, built the Holiday Inn Express in Malone for LaBarge and ran it for a year.

LaBarge attempted to buy the Hotel Saranac before the Roedels did but couldn’t come to an agreement with then-owner Sewa Arora, so he decided to build a new hotel instead.

Roedel’s local hotel project was announced 13 days after LaBarge’s in the summer of 2013. Both won big money from the state that December, when the regional economic development competition awards were announced in Albany. The Hotel Saranac took home $5 million while the Lake Flower hotel won $2 million.

Since then, however, the projects have taken very different paths.

Community members and village officials have roundly cheered Roedel Companies’ effort to bring the Hotel Saranac back “to its historic grandeur.” In a tribute to the project, the Ice Palace at this year’s Saranac Lake Winter Carnival was designed to look like the Hotel Saranac.

Lake Flower Lodging’s plan, meanwhile, has been mired in controversy and a lengthy review process. Supporters say the resort hotel and its modern amenities are needed to draw more tourists to the community, but opponents have said the hotel is too big for the lakefront site, runs counter to planning goals for that area and that the village is misusing the Planned Unit Development District process.

Also, some critics have said the same thing Roedel is now arguing in his commentary. For example, at a November public hearing, village resident Dick Beamish said he feared the Lake Flower hotel would compete with a rejuvenated Hotel Saranac, “which is a project we’re all rooting for.”

–

Competition?

“We have serious concerns about building two upscale hotels in Saranac Lake, and it has nothing to do with competition,” Roedel’s commentary reads.

Roedel says his company has asked the village for “no special favors, no changes in ordinances.” In another shot at the size and location of the Lake Flower hotel plan, Roedel said that when he proposed a parking garage for the Hotel Saranac, he made sure it wouldn’t “alter the landscape or sightlines of the village.”

To support his argument that the Lake Flower hotel could add too many rooms, Roedel cites research into the history of the market.

“Based on our research, we expect to sell 24,000 rooms annually, which is 64 percent of the total rooms available at the Hotel Saranac,” Roedel wrote. “At that occupancy and with room rates equal to the current market, this project is profitable.”

That could change if 90 more upscale rooms are added to the market, Roedel wrote.

“A seemingly more prudent approach would be to see if the need comes close to exceeding capacity at one hotel and monitoring its success before building a second,” he wrote.

Roedel also said the three motels that would be torn down to build the Lake Flower hotel “cater to a different customer than the Hotel Saranac, avoiding oversaturation.”

–

LaBarge’s take

The Enterprise passed on a copy of Roedel’s commentary to LaBarge on Wednesday to get his response.

“We’re surprised,” LaBarge said. “Everything from past comments of the Roedels has been that the projects are complementary to one another to create critical mass for Saranac Lake.”

LaBarge also said Roedel’s comments about the two projects oversaturating the market are contradictory to what his company’s consultants have told them, but he otherwise declined to comment for now.

“We’ll take some time to completely consider the comments and formalize a response for the paper,” LaBarge said.

–

Mayor’s take

It’s unclear how much impact Roedel’s criticism could have on the village board’s decision on the Lake Flower hotel rezoning.

Mayor Clyde Rabideau, in an email, said he would “disagree agreeably” with Roedel.

“To say Saranac Lake can only have one high-end hotel and should shoo-away competition is un-American, limits our future and shows lack of faith in Saranac Lake’s full potential,” Rabideau wrote. “It’s also is a disservice to our downtown and village businesses that need more tourists to stay afloat than what the Hotel Saranac will provide.

“I would no more tell a hotel builder to go away than I would tell another construction company or hair salon to go away. That’s not what Americans do and it’s not what a mayor who believes in his villages does. Saranac Lake, the Capital of the Adirondacks, is creating its own distinct and competitive tourism market and the more good lodging we have, the better that effort will be because without the rooms there will no place for these new tourists to stay.”