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Lake Placid housing complex readies for tenants

Tentative move-in by March

The McKenzie Overlook housing development on Wesvalley Road in Lake Placid is seen here Tuesday as FISU staff, which lived in the apartments before and during the 2023 FISU games, move belongings out of the building. The McKenzie Overlook could be move-in ready for long-term tenants as soon as this coming March. (Enterprise photo — Lauren Yates)

LAKE PLACID — Now that the World University Games in Lake Placid have come to a close, the MacKenzie Overlook housing development on Wesvalley Road is being prepared for long-term tenants.

The MacKenzie Overlook was bustling on Tuesday as people moved their belongings out of the 60-unit apartment building, which has housed FISU staff over the last few months. Soon — possibly by the beginning of March, according to property manager Jessica Preston — the building will be filled with long-term tenants who’ve waited months to call the MacKenzie Overlook home.

Preston said she’s still going through the process of vetting tenants for the building’s 40 one-bedroom and 20 two-bedroom apartments. MacKenzie Overlook’s rent prices are income-based, so each tenant has to be screened to ensure they meet income qualifications, among other requirements.

Around 150 applications for an apartment at the MacKenzie Overlook complex were entered into a lottery drawing this past August. That determined the order in which they’d be considered for tenancy. The applications are being considered in the order they were drawn, and Preston said she’s been making her way down the list for around a month.

Though the first 60 applications drawn in the lottery are being considered first for the complex’s 60 units, that doesn’t mean the remaining 90 or so applicants will be tossed out of the running, Preston said; some applicants could decide they no longer want to live at MacKenzie, others could exceed the income limits and some people may not even return Preston’s calls.

There’s still some work to be done before the apartments can be turned over to new tenants, according to Preston. The units at the development were completely filled with between 75 and 100 FISU staff, she said, with most of the 60 units housing multiple people. She said some of the units were furnished by games organizers since staff were living there for so long. Once all of the FISU staff and their belongings are moved out, Preston said the building’s contractors will need to assess apartments for repairs, and the Adirondack Sports Council is planning to hire a cleaning company to tidy up the units. The “goal” for long-term tenants’ move-in date is March 1, Preston said.

She said having FISU staff in the apartments was a good trial run for the building, allowing building staff to work out any “hiccups” as they arose — like making sure refrigerators were working and that water was running.

“So hopefully when our full-time residents move in, everything is in tip-top shape,” she said.

In the meantime, Preston encouraged potential tenants to be patient with the vetting process. “It’s a slow process” to work through the long waitlist, she said.

The MacKenzie Overlook is the culmination of a more than two-year process undertaken by Ardsley-based developer Regan Development, which secured state funding for the project, sought project approval from local governmental boards and the Adirondack Park Agency, and pushed through coronavirus pandemic-related construction supply chain bottlenecks to complete the apartments ahead of the Games.

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