This rendering shows what the Bonacio Construction project at 130 Excelsior Ave. in Saratoga
Springs will look like when the 65-unit apartment complex is done.
BY R.J. DELUKE
Construction season in the Saratoga County
will be in full swing weeks from now. Area contractors
say work is steady and 2016 is looking
like a solid year.
“Indicators are strong,” said Mike Munter, vice
president of Munter Enterprises in Middle Grove.
“We’re seeing a lot of bidding activity. We sense it’s
going to be another busy year ahead.”.
Bob Fortune of BCI Construction said there is a
lot of activity in the construction field this year, “but
it’s still a very, very competitive business. Margins
are very tight. You can’t afford to make mistakes.”
For Munter, his company is wrapping up work
on a new building for Greenfield Manufacturing
in the Grande Industrial Park in Saratoga Springs.
That is a 35,000-square-foot project on five acres.
Also in the park, work is nearing completion
on the Peroxy Chemical building. Munter started
building the hydrogen peroxide purification plant
last summer.
The factory is designed to support the Global-
Foundries Fab 8 chip plant in Malta, which uses
hydrogen peroxide to clean and remove impurities
during production. The new facility is Peroxy-
Chem’s second hydrogen peroxide purification
facility in the U.S. and third worldwide.
Munter will also build a 40,000-square-foot
building in the industrial park for AgroChem, a
manufacturer of cleaning products for dairy farms
and food processing companies. Munter said the
company has been leasing space in the park for
about the last decade and has “grown into [needing]
their own facility.”
The company is also doing a small expansion
at Druther’s on Broadway in Saratoga Springs. The
bar/restaurant, which brews its own beer, is adding
kitchen space to accommodate a wood-fired stove
for pizza making, said Munter. There will also be
addition space in the bar area, as well as a bar set
up specifically for the outdoor patio area.
Lake Placid Pub & Brewery in Lake Placid has
hired Munter to build a structure for a “new concept”
brew house and bar that will be able to seat
60 people. Additionally, the company will build a
new fire station for the Galway Volunteer Fire Co.
on West Street in Galway. The single-story building
will be 12,000 square feet and include a large
kitchen, meeting rooms and a community center.
On the horizon, but pending Planning Board
approval, is the proposed outdoor recreation area
at the Saratoga Springs YMCA on West Street.
That proposal calls for a 17,000-square-foot
addition on the 22-acre campus. It would double
the size of the summer camp programs, which
currently serve 140 children, and creating a dynamic
recreational space, YMCA officials said. The
centerpiece is a 4,340-square-foot outdoor pavilion
designed to serve as an open-air community space
and a classroom for the day-campers.
Fortune said the two big things for BCI in
Saratoga County are the Adelphi Hotel renovation
on Broadway and changing its handling of the Elms
housing development in Saratoga Springs.
Going back some years, BCI was going to build
all the homes, but things were slow in the early
years,” said Fortune. Last year, BCI decided not
to build the homes, but put that task in the hands
of capable local builders. BCI sells the lots. Since
that decision sales have been “much more brisk.”
“We hope that trend continues,” he said. “It’s a
matter of us primarily being a commercial builder.
It’s kind of hard to mix the two [commercial and
residential] successfully.”
The renovation of the historic Adelphi started
last year and has had a few “starts and stops”
along the way due to changes in plans. Most of
those are due to purchase of properties behind
the hotel, which led to alterations in some of the
project goals.
The plan for 32 guest rooms on the upper floors
has not changed much, he said. There have been
changes in the plans for kitchen space, the bar area
and other amenities.
“The historic nature of the building has presented
lots of challenges and surprises,” said Fortune.
“We’ve addressed them all as we move forward.”
The majority of the first floor is in the process
of being replaced. A lot of the supporting wood is
replaced with steel reinforcement on the inside and
wood on the outside to leave its historic appearance,
but be better meet the safety and structural
needs. He said floors were jacked up and leveled.
Many windows were replaced, but done so in
keeping with their historic nature.
Because of the historic stipulations, the front
windows could not be replaced, but are being
removed and restored, to be later put back in. The
columns on the porch facing Broadway, Fortune
noted, were hollow wood. They will be replaced
with columns that have steel reinforcement inside
and at the top and bottom.
“It’s amazing they held up all these years,” he
said.
Railing on the front veranda will also be replaced.
In the basement, the floor was lowered to give
the area more headroom. It required the removal
of a lot of rock. The flooring above the basement
is being re-done.
Fortune said the monumental staircase visible
when first entering the lobby will be taken apart,
renovated and replaced. There will be steel within
the new wood framing. It will look the same, but
“the old wood was not sufficient for the amount of
traffic the stairway will have,” he said.
Two elevators will be installed and their will be
a food service dumb waiter.
Those are only some of the modifications being
undertaken.
“This thing is going to be like nothing else that
exists in Saratoga”, when completed, Fortune said.
Bonacio Construction Inc. is working on a development
project at 130 Excelsior Ave. in Saratoga
Springs will result in a 65-unit apartment complex.
Construction began in October and the apartments
are expected to go on the market in the
summer. It will be a mix of one- and two-bedroom
units, with a few larger apartments, in a four-story
building.
The location is in the eastern part of the city,
between East Avenue and the Northway. Excelsior
Avenue is south of, and parallel to, Route 50. The
site is largely wooded and will have a connector to
the Spring Run Trail, a two-mile loop for walkers
and bikers.
A retail store is also included in the building
plan. The neighborhood includes restaurants, a
brewery, a grocery store and other commercial
development nearby.
According to the company, apartments will have
laundry facilities, internet and cable TV service,
kitchens with granite countertops, and hardwood
floors. Rentals are described as “market rate” but
actual prices are not yet available. A 24-hour fitness
facility is planned for the tenants, along with
a community room.
The $17 million project was designed by Balzar
+ Tuck architects in Saratoga Springs. The building
will be a combination of steel and wood frame
construction with several private entrances and a
lobby with elevator.
In Glens Falls, Bonacio, in partnership with
Galesi Group, is building a six-story mixed-use
complex at the intersection of Hudson Avenue and
School Street in Glens Falls, on the parking lot next
to Glens Falls Hospital. It will include retail on the
ground floor, commercial offices on the second
floor, and up to 90 apartments on the upper floors.
Diamond Pointe is a new residential neighborhood
being built in Clifton Park, located between
Moe Road and Vischers Ferry Road. Of its 10
half-acre lots, three have already sold.
The project is being developed by Dave Trojanski,
who last year merged his company, Trojanski
Builders, with Bonacio Construction.
Prospective home buyers at Diamond Pointe
will have the opportunity to work with Trojanski
and the Bonacio team to design their own
unique custom home. There are no pre-drawn
plans for the properties. Prices will range from
mid-$300,000 to the mid-$500,000 range and
buyers will be able to choose such amenities as
handcrafted cabinetry, coffered ceilings, home offices
and entertainment areas, sunrooms, spacious
entries, and mudrooms.
Frank H. Alessandrini, president of F.H. Alexander
Inc. contractors in Ballston Lake, said his
company will be busy converting some Hess gas
station/convenience store locations into Speedway
stores.
Marathon Petroleum Co., the owner of Speedway,
bought the Hess retail operations and transport
operations in 2014 and last year transformation
of the locations across the country began.
Alessandrini said his company, working under
Gilbane Building Co. in Albany, the construction
management company for Speedway in the eastern
part of the county, did some 123 shops in 2015 and
has more on the schedule this year.
For Speedway, F.H. Alexander has been doing
work in an area from Dutchess County, north to
Warren County.
Alessandrini said a lot of the work includes interior,
upgrading the food service equipment, doing
work with coolers and installing new countertops.
Headquartered in Enon, Ohio, Speedway is the nation’s
second-largest company-owned and -operated
convenience store chain with approximately
2,760 stores located in 22 states.
“We’re looking forward to a busy spring,” Alessandrini
said.
His company will be begin this spring the
construction of a new Agway store on Route 40,
between Troy and Schaghticoke. The company
is also expanding the dental offices of Dr. Amy
Pfaffenbach and Dr. George Habeeb and Amy on
the Sitterly Road in Clifton Park. It involves both
interior and exterior work.
Bids for other projects in the area are pending,
he said.
Rick Eaglestone of DCG Development in Clifton
Park said his company has been involved in the
redevelopment of Clifton Corporation Plaza off
Route 146 in Clifton Park. That work will occupy
a lot of time in 2016.
The park four buildings in the park will be transformed
from office use to office/mixed-use space,
said Eaglestone. There are four existing buildings
of 24,900 square feet each that have gone vacant
“for some time” he said. DCG decided to invest
money into the changes so they can be marketed
differently and find their successful niche.
The first floors of the buildings will be thoroughly
re-done to accommodate office space. The
second floors will be made available for service
businesses and possible retail, even restaurant type
space.
MLB Construction in Malta will be building a
new dorm at Skidmore College consisting of about
100,000 square feet total in four buildings. The
three acres for the project will include parking.
Paone Architecture in Saratoga designed it.
MJ Properties of Clifton Park is planning to
build 2,800 square feet of office and two storage
warehouses totalling 25,000 square feet on 4.4
acres off Stonebreak Road in Malta . The company
is also working on Fairchild Technology Park,
Phase II, off Usher’s Road in Clifton Park, building
two offices and warehouse storage totalling
100,000 square feet.
Maureen Werther and Jill Nagy contributed to
this story.