Category Archives: Environment / Development

By Jill Nagy

Landscape architects do far more than decide where to lay sod and plant flowers. Companies like the Saratoga Spring landscape architecture firm CLA SITE—which is celebrating 25 years in business—are far more complex.

Among its projects was the redesigned of the concession area at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, including siting the new buildings and redoing the stormwater management plan. The company is also working with Envision Architects to develop a new indoor/outdoor market complex in Glens Falls.

It is also redoing part of Albany’s Empire State Plaza to alleviate drainage and stormwater problems. 

“Lawns are for entry level folks,” said Peter Loyola, the company’s founder and principal. 

Today’s landscape architect combines aspects of civil engineering, architecture, and urban planning, as well as environmental permitting. The full name of the company reflects that pedigree: CLA Site Landscape Architecture, Engineering, and Planning PC.

Loyola started the company in order to work on technical problems like stormwater management, drainage issues, subdivision site plans, and master plans for residential subdivisions. CLA can site the houses, plan the roads, look at driveway features, and, when they have it all planned out, make a presentation to a planning board and get the site plan approved, Loyola said.

Stewart’s Shops is adding electric car battery charging stations across many of its stores.

The company broke ground on its first NYPA EVolve Electric Vehicle Fast Charging Station on July 1 in Schodack. 

Officials said the chargers are powerful enough to provide a full charge to a electric vehicle in just 15 to 30 minutes.

The DC fast chargers have three kinds of plugs to make sure an electric vehicle of choice can stop in and get a charge on the go. EVolve New York’s chargers are available to all non-Tesla electric vehicles.

Officials said  some charging stations will have a Tesla adapter. 

Stewart’s Shops currently has three Tesla supercharging stations throughout New York with plans to expand the program by installing two more by the end of 2021.

The Stewart’s Shops charging station in Schodack will be fully operational by September   and is just one of five EV charging stations that Stewart’s Shops plans to open by the end of the year.

By Christine Graf

Van Patten Golf Club in Clifton Park was recently purchased by business partners Lance Orcutt and Roland Mann, owners of Executive Group in Amsterdam.

The pair took over operations of the golf club on July 7.

Longtime owners Robert Van Patten Jr. and his wife, Kathy, decided to sell the course in order to spend more time with their children and grandchildren. The club was built in 1968 by Van Patten’s father, local builder Robert Van Patten. In 2002, the public course was reconfigured, and a 15,000-square-foot banquet hall, The Vista, was added to the property.

According to Orcutt, he became interested in purchasing the golf club after Neil Cherkosly of Upstate Appraisal Services made him aware that the property was for sale. 

“He sent me all of the information and it looked really great on paper. That prompted me to ask for a meeting with the Van Pattens, Robert and Kathy. We had a great conversation and walked the property. Seeing what they did with the property in the years that they owned it was impressive.”

As a result of that one meeting, Orcutt and Mann offered the full asking price for the property. Their offer was accepted by the Van Pattens, who received four other offers for the club.

“It was a straight up business transaction. I saw a terrific value in the property itself. It’s a profitable business that in my opinion has the ability to be much more profitable,” he said. “It wasn’t being sold because of an inability to be profitable or because it fell into disrepair.”

As the second phase of construction for Skidmore’s Center for Integrated Sciences advances on schedule this summer, President Marc Conner helped commemorate an important milestone in the raising of the project’s East Wing.

Skidmore officially celebrated the completion of the North Wing in late March during an outdoor, socially distanced ceremony.

The Capital Region’s own MLB Construction is managing the project, currently overseeing about 20 different contractors on site.

“This is a great day as we continue to see incredible progress in this game-changing project for Skidmore’s students, faculty and staff,” said Conner. “These beautiful, well-equipped new facilities are expanding learning and research opportunities not only in the sciences, but between and among so many areas of study at the college.”

The East Wing and the renovation of the newer portion of Dana Science Center comprise Phase II of construction and are slated to open in time for the fall 2022 semester.

The East Wing will be home to the IdeaLab makerspace, a core component of the CIS project that represents the spirit of integrative learning at the heart of this largest academic initiative in the College’s history, officials said. As a hub of collaboration and interdepartmental synergy, students and faculty will work collaboratively and across disciplines in the new space to explore creative solutions to some of today’s pressing issues.

By Christine Graf

Long Island developer, thoroughbred owner, and NYRA board member Michael Dubb has partnered with The Adelphi Hotel owner Larry Roth to return the 128,000-square-foot Rip Van Dam Hotel in the heart of downtown to its original grandeur.

Built in 1840, the Rip Van Dam, is located at 365 Broadway next to The Adelphi Hotel at 353 Broadway in Saratoga Springs. The $50 million renovation and expansion project has received site plan and design review approval and is awaiting an architectural review.

“I never really had intended to get involved in real estate development in Saratoga, but two projects found me. I didn’t find them,” said Dubb.

In addition to the Rip Van Dam project, Dubb is also in the process of developing 53 lots in Oak Ridge, a luxury housing development located just five minutes from the track.

“I thought the land was so beautiful that I just couldn’t pass it up,” he said.

By Andrea Harwood Palmer
Local developer and engineer Scott Lansing is partnering with the Jersen Construction Group of Waterford on an expansion of Sitwell Plaza, a mixed-use property off Route 9 in Malta.
Sitwell Plaza is comprised of three buildings. Two are built and occupied by tenants. The expansion involves building a third—a 12,000-square-foot structure that is under construction.
Lansing, founder of Lansing Engineering in Malta, said he has a “great working relationship” with Dave and Ken Jersen. “We’ve been working together about 10 years or so now on other properties. They were and are integral to this project,” he said.

By Susan Elise Campbell
The second phase of Oak Ridge, a luxury housing development nestled between Saratoga Lake and Saratoga Race Course, will be constructed by Beechwood Homes under the leadership of founder Mike Dubb and his son and partner, Steven Dubb.
The project will add 53 homes with prices ranging from $850,000 to $2 million-plus. After 35 years building thousands of single-family homes downstate, this is Beechwood’s first project in the Saratoga area.
The subdivision’s original developer was J. Snyder Builders, who approached Dubb about continuing the project Jeff Snyder had started with 40 homes.

By Christine Graf
Saratoga County will vacate its offices at 31 Woodlawn Ave. in Saratoga Springs by mid-August and put a well-placed piece of downtown real estate up for sale and potential development.
The county has occupied the two-story brick building since the 1970s. It was most recently home to public safety, public health, emergency service and probation offices.
Those offices have relocated to the Public Safety Building in Milton, a 63,000-square-foot structure that was constructed to house the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Department and the Saratoga County 911 Communications Center.
According to Saratoga County Supervisor Matthew Veitch, the county’s Building and Grounds committee met on July 14 to discuss the Woodlawn Avenue property. The building sits on 0.5 acres of prime real estate in downtown Saratoga Springs.