Courtesy Prime Companies
By Paul Post
Cohoes-based Prime Companies has a project approved in Saratoga Springs and is waiting for the stars to align, financially speaking, before going ahead with construction.
That’s the firm’s strategy for a proposed upscale apartment and townhouse complex to be called Saratoga Station Square on the south side of Station Lane, off West Avenue, in Saratoga Springs, near the Amtrak station.
Plans call for a 2024 construction start on four, four-story apartment buildings with 338 units, 48 townhouses, a 376-space underground parking garage and amenities such as a saltwater swimming pool, outdoor fire pits, pizza ovens and kitchen, putting greens and bocce courts.
“Saratoga Springs is arguably the best place in Capital Region to live,” Prime Companies principal Dean Devito said. “It’s regularly voted one of the best small cities in America. When you get people coming in from out of town, deciding where to live, Saratoga constantly gets ranked as having the best quality of life.”
“Anybody who wants to take a train, you can just walk from the property and go to Montreal or New York City,” he said.
Prime recently paid $2.5 million for 17 acres where the project would be located, between Station Lane and Route 29. Devito said construction, taking from 18 to 24 months, would likely cost from $70 million to $80 million.
The complex would be almost identical in design to the company’s Hudson Square luxury apartments on Van Schaick Island in Cohoes.
“We’re taking that model and reproducing it in Saratoga,” Devito said.
But the construction timeline will be heavily dependent on the economy “because of how high construction costs and interest rates are,” he said. “I’ve been doing this more than 30 years and I’ve been probably through six of these cycles. What we do is get projects ready. When the stars align, then we build them. Are the stars going to align in 2024? I can’t tell you right now. But I’ll have a piece of property that’s ready if the time is right.”
The Station Lane property was previously targeted for a large hotel, which a different developer backed away from. Because of this, however, considerable data for site-plan issues has already been collected, which could hasten the approval process, Devito said.
But he acknowledged that traffic concerns for the already busy West Avenue corridor could be a challenge.
“We’re confident we can address the traffic issues. It’s probably going to be the biggest thing we have to resolve,” he said.
Prime Companies also developed the Pavilion Grand apartments on Lake Avenue in downtown Saratoga Springs and The Hamlet at Saratoga, which has 145 apartments and 50,000 square feet of retail space near the intersection of Marion and Excelsior avenues.
“So we have a presence there and like the market,” said Devito.
He said the new complex would likely attract both empty-nesters downsizing from single-family homes, and millennials just moving to Saratoga.
The size of the property creates more opportunity for recreational activities, making it more attractive for some people than Prime’s other projects in Saratoga Springs, he said.
Plans call for 184 one-bedroom apartments, 104 two-bedroom apartments and 50 three-bedroom units.
“There’s definitely a housing shortage right now, nationally, and somewhat in our area as well,” he said. “There’s always going to be enough people to rent the 338 apartments that we’re putting up.”
Rental fees will likely be higher in Saratoga than at Prime’s facilities elsewhere, simply because of the market’s popularity, but an exact price structure hasn’t been determined.
“I can’t tell you what the rental market is going to be like three years from now,” Devito said. “I can’t compare it to Hudson Square because Saratoga is a totally different market.”