LAKE PLACID – Along with 24 hotel rooms, Parkside Inn LLC, the purchaser of the bankrupt National Sports Academy school property, plans to include a partnership with Clarkson University on an “Innovation Hot Spot.”

The Hot Spot would provide office space for up to eight to 10 businesses in conjunction with Clarkson University’s Shipley Center for Innovation.

The office space is for lease as a part of the New York State Business Incubator and Innovation Hot Spot Program’s North Country regional consortium, headed by Clarkson, based in Potsdam. The goal of the program, enacted as part of the 2013-14 New York state budget, is to help businesses cultivate their ideas with a focus on their specific markets. The program would provide shared business resources, and Clarkson staff would be on site on a regular basis to provide mentoring.

“Instead of recreating infrastructure that exists already, the hub and spoke model looks at what entrepreneurs need to succeed,” Matthew Draper, deputy director of the Shipley Center, said in a news release. “Instead of bringing them to our location, we will bring what they need to them.”

In a July 2014 press release, Clarkson reported that the North Country is one of only five state Regional Economic Development Councils that was awarded a Hot Spot through Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s REDC initiative.

This summer, a bankruptcy court approved the sale of the former school to Walnut Woods LLC for $1.1 million. John Brodt of Glens Falls-based Behan Communications said in November that the NSA sale agreement is in the process of being assigned from Walnut Woods LLC to Parkside Inn LLC, a separate firm in which the investors, who have declined to identify themselves, are members.

But parking has persisted as a problem, and at Wednesday’s Lake Placid-North Elba Joint Review Board meeting, parking plans will be discussed further.

Jacob Wright of Lake Placid, a consultant for the purchasing group, met with the review board at its Dec. 2 meeting. Several board members questioned the plan, highlighting a lack of parking for employees and requesting to do a site visit focusing on the parking concerns.

The board performed the site visit on Dec. 9, and after walking the property disclosed its concerns at its Dec. 16 meeting. These included traffic circulation patterns, snow storage and removal, screening of the parking area, stormwater management control and green space.

“After doing some walking off and looking at the overall area and his plan, the board decided to hire an independent engineer to review the applicant’s proposal and to come up with other solutions and ideas to determine if his plan would actually work and is feasible,” Board Chairman Bill Hurley said at the Dec. 16 meeting.

At the request of the review board, Parkside Inn LLC has agreed to hire a second engineering firm to review its proposed parking plan. After the board makes its decision, it’s then the applicant’s responsibility to fund the board’s chosen plan.

“Being in that parking lot, looking at two Suburbans parked on an angle, they are going to have a tough time getting out of there,” Hurley said. And the grade of the exit to Parkside Drive is severe… (The applicant) might say, hey, his engineer came up with this, and we might go with that, but we are just having someone else’s eyes look at it.”

NSA filed for bankruptcy last January after several years of sagging enrollment and debt. The private high school for winter sport student-athletes including 23 Olympians in its 38 years closed in May, and the building was put on the market for roughly $1.4 million.

Lake Placid News Editor Andy Flynn contributed to this report.