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APA staff: Approve Lake Flower Resort

Proposed design of Lake Flower Resort (Image provided)

RAY BROOK — State Adirondack Park Agency staff is recommending approval, with conditions, of a controversial hotel project on the shore of Lake Flower in Saranac Lake.

In a draft permit and order posted to the agency’s website Thursday, APA staff called for approval of both a permit and a variance for the proposed Lake Flower Resort and Spa.

The final decision will be made by the APA’s Board of Commissioners, which is scheduled to consider the project Thursday morning. If the board signs off, it would be a milestone in the development of a project that was first proposed in 2013.

The company behind the project, Saranac Lake Resort LLC, is under contract to buy three Lake Flower Avenue motels: the Adirondack Motel, the Lake Flower Inn and the Lakeside Motel. They would be demolished to make way for the four-story, 32,000-square-foot resort. It would feature 93 guest rooms, two restaurants, a bar, conference/meeting facilities, and an indoor/outdoor spa. Its fourth floor would rise to 66 feet at the ridgeline, with a 69-foot-tall turret at the building’s highest point. The property would have a 100-car pervious paved parking area, plus 10 off-site parking spaces at Nonna Fina restaurant on River Street.

The village Board of Trustees approved a key zoning change for the project, the Lake Flower Planned Unit Development, in March 2015. The village Planning Board granted site plan approval in July of last year, and it has been before the APA since then.

The agency has jurisdiction because the building is taller than 40 feet in height, and because the installation of a proposed dock requires a wetlands permit. It also needs a variance for several elements — including a corner of a restaurant, sidewalks, porches and roof overhangs, and a hot tub and deck — that are located within the agency’s 50-foot shoreline setback.

A total of 45 people commented on the project during the agency’s review, either in letters or at a public meeting in January. Twelve of those people said they were in favor of it, including one person who claimed he or she represented 195 people in support of it. Another 33 people raised concerns about traffic and parking impacts, the size of the development, visual impacts, the local approval process, and stormwater and wetland impacts. Several people requested an adjudicatory hearing be held on the project.

The agency’s draft permit addresses most of the public’s concerns. Among its findings, the parts of the project requiring a variance add up to 4,073 square feet. That’s less than the 7,100 square foot combined footprint of the existing structures and impervious area currently located in the shoreline setback, all of which will be removed.

On the topic of stormwater management, APA staff found the proposal would reduce the amount of impervious area on the site by 0.19 acres, or 8,276 square feet.

Impacts to wetlands would be minimized by the reduction in impervious area, stormwater management, and erosion and sediment control plans, the agency found.

A traffic impact study found the project will increase traffic by 34 vehicles per hour over existing conditions, an amount the agency says “did not warrant additional traffic analysis.”

The agency also found no issues with the resort’s parking plan, however, “There may be a need for the village of Saranac Lake to coordinate with NYSDOT to establish no parking signage along Route 86 in front of the project site,” the agency said.

A visual impact analysis and the agency’s own review “indicate the hotel and associated structures will have a visual impact within the village of Saranac Lake.” However, the agency said a series of measures “will help minimize these visual impacts,” including limiting the size and height of the hotel, requiring its final colors and exterior finish materials to be reviewed, requiring exterior lighting to be angled downward, requiring maintenance of an existing cedar hedge and 20 mature trees, and requiring new landscaping and plantings.

In recommending approval of the variance, the agency noted that water quality will be enhanced by reduction of impervious area both within the shoreline setback area and throughout the rest of the project site.

“The quality of the shoreline of Lake Flower will be protected because the elements requiring a variance will be located in a hamlet land use area along a developed shoreline, and are consistent with the existing aesthetic character of the shoreline,” the agency found.

It noted that a smaller hotel and parking area could be built, potentially allowing some of the elements within 50 feet of the lake to be pulled back further, but the developer’s market analysis said a smaller hotel would be less successful and have more financial challenges.

Conditions in the draft permit would require the developers to certify, within 60 days of getting a certificate of occupancy, that the building’s location, size, dimensions and height are built in compliance with the plans. They also have to follow the color, outdoor lighting, signage, parking and landscaping and stormwater management plans submitted to the agency. Any changes to those plans would require written agency approval.

The project is scheduled to be presented to the APA’s Regulatory Programs Committee at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

If the project should win approval from the full agency board, project manager Jacob Wright told the Enterprise in December that demolition of the existing motels would begin as soon as possible. Construction of the hotel would take about a year to complete, he said.

“Hopefully we’re at the end of the process here,” Wright said at the time.

However, Saranac Lake Resort LLC would still need several other approvals, including a State Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, a DOT highway work permit and a Department of Health permit for the pools, hot tub and restaurants.

The project is also the subject of a lawsuit filed against the village Planning Board last year by the owners of a potentially competing hotel, the Hotel Saranac. Roedel Companies claims the village didn’t follow its own rules when it approved the project. The village has asked a judge to dismiss the case.

The APA’s draft permit says Saranac Lake Resort’s cost to purchase the existing motel properties is $2.7 million, with projected construction costs at $10 million. The hotel is estimated to have $10 million in operating sales. In addition to temporary construction jobs, it would have 70 full-time and 30 part-time employees.

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