Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

All right, recording. Ready.

All right. Good evening everyone. It is now 6:04 p.m. September 11th, 2025. We will call the planning board hearing and meeting to order. Very short agenda today. as appropriate joined by Rachel Bryster. I'm chair Chris Ellis. We have our staff with us and we'll get through these two agenda items hopefully without too much issue. First up will be part of our um meeting agenda for 70 and 108 through 114 Grand Street. Community builders conditional use permit review as well. Are they trying to present on this? Do we have do we have any additional questions on this project?

No, I don't I do not. No, I don't think so. We didn't have any additional review. We can go ahead and advance this one. Our questions are outside the scope. Plenty more perview, but it still remain social commentary. But that being said, um, all in favor of advancing and improving the conditioning use permit the way for street amenities and development CL view 470 and 1083114 Grand Street. Is there a motion? Solved. Second. Second. Moved and seconded. Uh, assuming no questions, all in favor, please say I.

I. Those opposed? Passes. Go to our hearing agenda. everything together.

We have an amendment to a prior project that at least I know Vanessa and I were deep in for quite some time. Oak 105 Broadway First Columbia. I see Mr. Hersburg is here representing. This is an amendment to an approved development plan review and designer review tall building. This is a proposal to amend uh a DPR number 0054 for a new DRTB number 0002 which includes new construction of a 9tory building with general office and restaurant ground floor with a footprint of 11,800 ft gross area 4236 proposal also include new construction of a fourtory mixed use building with 56 dwelling units and 4,000 square feet grow for general use retail project includes off park of about 76 spaces.

Thank you. Behind me is Chris Betty who represents First Columbia LLC and Meliss who represents not this project but she is the uh person involved with the hotel directly behind this project. Melissa has been involved in this project since just about its beginning. Chris was involved in the very beginning. What used to be a brownfield. Uh they cleaned up the brown field originally and that was all taken care of. This shows the site. The the uh big red uh star is in an area that's that's fully graded and compacted material that was put in when uh when the material was backfilled under the brownfield agreement

and uh that it's great material to build upon. But meanwhile, for our building foundation, we have to go down the because we have a tall building in the soil, but all that isn't very good. We're using uh end bearing piles just go all the way down to the rock. So, that's how it's going to be supported. So, what's in between us and the uh and the rack is is relevant on the court. Question came up as a question is do we have to redo a geotechnical report? The basic information geotechnical report hasn't changed because the distance to the rock didn't move at all in the 15 years we've involved with this project. Next, we got a this is uh the existing edition plan. At the bottom is the is the hotel. The rest of it is doesn't show much on it because there's not much on it right now. And the next one shows this goes through the history of the Seager starting the 2018 and bringing it to date. It's been through a lot of reviews in the past as we went through the original approval and we went had amended approval when the when the hotel was brought on. So uh a lot of the analysis normally done for a project are really already been done like sewer and water use sewer and water use proposing here is less than was proposed when the project originally received its uh approvals. So we don't think that's an issue and uh like I said technical hasn't changed and the site hasn't changed. I guess I guess the real question is are the buildings we supposed to put on there satisfactory according to code. So uh if you want to go through this next one has comparative analysis of um I'm stealing this from

Anna Anna preparedness for us. It shows it shows the uh crew room 2018 had 181 residential units. We're now down to 56. Uh hotel rooms were originally 136. There's 110 existing. The square foot of retail was originally over 24,000. It's down to 4,000. But what went up is the office space. So, we traded residential uh units for office space and commercial retail space for office space. And the parking is actually service parking is a little more than it was when we revised the uh the plan in 2019 for the hotel. And uh like I said, the water use is actually less than we had before. So the compare of analysis is pretty good. If you go to the next slide, this shows us filling in the building. The building in front parallel the Broadway is a ninestory office building. It has a restaurant on uh the south end. The uh there also is a plaza in between the um Nice office building and a fourstory residential building. Fourstory residential building also has a plaza adjoining Spencer Street and Broadway. The uh the area there shows a surface parking and uh if you uh there's also a traffic light currently under construction on the site. So the question was do we need a traffic light? Well, the city has already put the traffic light in. Right. So that's that question's been answered. Um the next the next slide shows the water service which has a couple water service going up just outside the curb on Broadway and service goes to a manhole

at the back of the site which goes to the sewer in Spencer Street. So you know it's fairly simple to serve. We don't have to cross Broadway uh project crossing Broadway. We had that one spot before when we went down the 760 Broadway. That project was a major crossing had to go across the Agramal conduits which is a whole bank of conduit goes all the way from Al Water and it it was torture to get through there because National Grid had a separation requirement. We ended up putting a water man about 16 foot deep to get across it. But we did get across it but the problem we don't have to go that direction. So the storm water plant the stormwater plan was actually done originally um everything was sized to take the entire build out of the area even though it was like a phase one was a hotel and it was thought that the phase two would be residential units here and uh we went through a couple iterations with potential developers and never pan out and now uh first Columbia LLC use that as a market for the ninestory office building and the residentials they think will be well received landscaping plan. We've got a lot of comments back on landscaping plan. We'll address those and the first line of comments we got back from departments have a lot of comments about landscaping and we'll address those. There are some problems of putting landscape out by the curb on Broadway because they have all a lot of utilities out there. We can't a few in there and we'll we'll work with the with the staff to figure out the best place to get landscaping in on the site. Next one is the rendered view of the current elevation of the mix building and

the height of the building from from the ground elevation is elevation 32 plus or minus and at peak of that roof is like 157. So it's like 125. We called it 130 on the fall building application because we're never sure whether or not some change will take place which might require us to add a foot or two handle conduits or something under or other things fit into the floors depending upon the tenants needs. The next next one shows this is the first floor plan. It's a little light, I'm sorry. But on the on the right hand side, that's the east end of the building where the restaurant is and the rest of it is entrances for services and entrances primarily for the building. And the next floor uh next floor has the typical floor of the buildings are pretty much there a series of seven of these and then there's a penthouse score. The only one difference is 10 store and that has the offices all around it. This is a penthouse store which uh gives you a a great view from there. I'm sure you definitely be able to see the mountains of Massachusetts, but you probably can from the seventh or 842. The next one, this is an elevation which is required to show you what it is. That bottom elevation the ground is 132. The peak of the building shows as 32. The peak of building shows is 157. So it's pretty close to 130. It's like 124 shown on there. But we made the 12 building application assuming that we just in case of there's a change we made between the time to go through our concept drawings. The next one is the side elevation.

Looks pretty much the same for both sides. There are entrance on both sides. One one going out to Spencer Street and one going to the restaurant. And the next one is the rear elevation. That's in from the parking lot. It's also looking for the rear of the hotel. That's the building we have. There's some great differences in the back because we have to get some loading area. Have to get some entrances area down there. So there's a not a direct straight grade all the way across the bottom. The next one is the uh render view of the mixed use building is a fourstory building. And that's that's what it will look like looking at. This is looking in from Spencer Street and I think I have a view looking from Broadway next. That's go back. That's looking in from Broadway. That's the go in there and you'll see it shows park. There's parking beneath that. So that

hit me over the head. Retail on this end. What's that? retail on this end and parking underneath the

Yeah, what you're seeing is the retail end there that has all the glass on is required by code. The transparency of the of the commercial space and this is the view of the front and rear elevations of the mix building. And those are two side elevations. And here's the floor plan on the first floor which has the green space which is commercial space and the rest are the upper floors which are residential uses. Question made about whether or not we have a uh need. We do have to put some other things in there. We have to show bike storage and have bike storage internal that building. This is the first at the floor plan. So be able to satisfy it.

Any questions from board?

Do you have any? I do. Just so you know, don't feel compelled. Well, the first question that just comes to mind is really out of curiosity. Do you have any thoughts or plans as to what um in the retail space? Well, kind of business.

We show we'll show the restaurant. The other retail space, we're not sure. Retail market is a is a tough thing to predict, especially when we're even if we get approved. Right now, we're still a couple years away from having that rental space for rent, but who knows what might come along. It'd be a great location for somebody that's right building. a lot of foot traffic in there, but you know, we're not sure. We'll jump up to rent it. I don't think has any retail kind.

We do not. So, it's going to be complimementary to the to the whole mixed area including the hotel. a lot of options, a lot of things that support the apartments.

One thing that I just noticed is it feels like there's not a lot of grocery stores available. So, it feels like there could potentially be an opportunity there to the building, you know, like I'm just looking at pictures, but something that I feel like when I'm downtown um that I'm not able to easily get is groceries.

There's been a talk of getting grocery shopping in downtown areas all along and every mic has tried it. some with better results than other disconnected. They're actually totally subsidizing is totally subsidizing the cost of a of a relative of the co-op there a restaurant downtown. Even they don't know it's going to work because primarily a lot of the shopping is done by people going to the major shopping places and amount of shopping they would do at this place is probably minimal and Therefore, the prices will be higher. So, I'm not so sure how it works, but they're going to make an attempt at doing it. We we had an attempt in the South area. So, again, I'm not so sure whether a small ger might be in just coming here. Who knows? Could be stranger things could happen.

Um I think it's kind of cool. to see that this space will have something from all the I don't even want to say trauma but the circumstances that surrounded the project was in 2018 when I went back to okay so that's seven years ago and there was co in And that was one of those I think I was fairly new to anymore, but it was one of those projects that was like really big, really exciting for downtown to see it shift and shape, you know, paying attention to the environment and what can happen with any sort of uh big deal. I don't think the board has approved a ton of projects that have just totally fizzed out. I think the one we probably think about the most right now is that one on

Western Avenue sit next to to Sunni. Um, give us the story. What what has changed over time that now makes this that can make this work. Um I was curious as to how we shifted from um what was largely a residential program with some commercial to wholly almost wholly office. It's a lot of office

where when any of us I work downtown. I've always worked downtown. When I walk around downtown this a ghost town and there's a ton of office space. So to bring another 100,000 square feet of office space downtown is counterintuitive. So I'm asking you to tell me the story of what you all are seeing that makes this thing class A. First of all, this would be the new the first class A office building built in downtown since 677 Broadway was built. Again, there hasn't been action downtown to build new class A office space. And when I say class A class A office open office open office open office open office space and a lot of demands are made by people that be very expensive to take a building and rehab it to what they need. Um, so I believe and I don't want to speak for First Columbia LLC. Well, First Columbia is here, so they can speak up to he's doing good.

That that they obviously have a tenant in mind for a portion of this n story building because they wouldn't build nine stories unless they had somebody in mind. They're not willing to reveal it. They don't, you know, not they're not really at that point, but the tenant would be a good tenant and their only option to find a kind of space they want out to the town of Colony is really has some relatively new office buildings that are become available. But you can't it's hard to take all the working with 90 stage jewels going the other way turning their offices into apartments because uh it's clear that those the layout of the floors where the apartments are going would not be suitable for for a modern office layout. People have different ideas about how to lay out offices. You saw the office of typical floors. They have walks around the side, big open space in the middle. And you know, again, it's a different type of layout that you get in any of the existing buildings. You go to rehab and you can't really take down a lot of those internal walls. They're bearing walls. I, you know, I've been through a lot of rehabs. Primarily, the rehabs are going taking office residential because you don't need much long span to build residency units into it. You could build it into the same sort of space you used to have in your offices, but So I think the the problem here, the reason this is coming about is there's a need for class A open space in downtown Albony. We want to keep tenants here that would would flee the city if they don't get if they can't get changed here. So that's the main reason that this is very heavy into office.

Mr. Chairman, I will just stand was right on the uh head there of the mail with his statements. Exactly. We we looked in downtown. So, there's a there's a there's a handful of tenants that are good size looking for office space in the capital district. Uh we initially went to try to find some buildings that we could own downtown that existing buildings. uh you know little bit of trouble finding uh willing sellers surprisingly um or sellers with the right price. Um but Dan's exactly right, the rehab cost of an existing building and the time frame it takes to rehab an existing building is almost identical to building a new building. Um, in our thoughts where, you know, we were involved with this piece of property with Melissa many, many years ago, you know, it's the gateway to the city. It's underdeveloped. It needs to be developed. Um, and it's going to be the modern office building, you know, so you're not trying to make an old building new. You're going to be building right for what the tenants want. and the perimeter offices, you know, for years everybody was, you know, putting the cubicles along the windows and moving everybody to the inside. That's actually going backwards and now they want perimeter offices every, you know, that's your, you know, the people making the money are, you know, in the fancy offices and the support groups in the middle. That's kind of the way that the uh market seems to be going back. Um, so you know, you say I don't we looked there's not a lot of vacancy in large footprint space in Albany. I mean, you can find it here and here and here, but you can't put enough together to support some of these tenants that were looking for space. So, you know, it just kind of morphed into, you know, for us,

if we can't find what we need to do downtown easily, the new build, it actually works better, right? We can do something nice. We can do something that's kind of, you know, at the gateway uh that actually changes the dynamic of what's going on, especially since all the stuff seems to be moving up Broadway to the warehouse district as well. So, I think it's it was kind of right for us to say, let's just go new and give the tenants what they want.

The other advantage of this site is the Quer Square parking garage. I mean, it's a huge advantage. parking is very close and there's plenty of so it's convenient to the employees and I think it's good use you know good for the office good for the department it's obviously working for the hotel so in other places in town it's hard to find parking close by

so for memory serves we have the I think it used to be a train station headquarters now property that they're developing all into housing Franklin 575 Broadway. Yeah. Then we go next door to 6 77 and you have the the exit. Yeah,

the old English club and the place 45 Broadway I've been involved doing reports and stuff like that. It's like 53 res total 66. It's not a huge residential space and that's because we're having that very beautiful open space into residential space is difficult. As a matter of fact, what they did is they concentrated most of res res on one half of the building where they're adding floors and then some of that high vated area and the rest of it. The major use of the rest of that building to be for a data center. 14,000 square feet of that building to be a data center which free employees. So their parking demands are not huge there.

I wasn't suggesting it was I'm just thinking about you know the direction in which development is happening that way.

Um be good to see some things coming when I think about the intersection of uh state pearl and that stuff around there. We got that old citizens building that was the humongous monstrosity across the street that was the right aid. The big Bank of America building that I swear not a single soul was in the one across JS which we heard was happening. We're talking we're in their world now planning world and just I think all of us especially I think speaking for me and this we've been sitting here at this table for quite some time uh to be able to see the manifestation of 2030 and what's supposed to happen there and

right you know what the the various project we've seen you a zillion projects from from you over the years and just hoping that somehow we turn the corner and that downtown can actually be the downtown we're bragging about versus Yeah. about 10 years ago, a gentleman came in to build very large apartment project on Second Avenue. You may remember it. It it had no possibility

Oh, I know what you're talking about. army. No, nobody can do a financial study of that that shows it being feasible. Of course, the blowing was high, put together a whole bunch of properties, the grade difference down from Second Avenue, whole bunch of things that went on there and he had proposed a a very upscale elaborate building down there and they they could put together a financial factor. That was the problem. It would be a beautiful plan, but now maybe if it came came about today and We took $200 million of of the governor's money. You could put some of that into it. But I, you know, at the time, new development sort of south of Madison Avenue was tough to get any substantial new development down there.

I didn't go down that far. I said Steady Pearl. Okay. I I I understand the challenges of South of the South End but you know downtown in terms of not even commercial conversions to residential which I know is difficult because

the the plumbing is different. The elevator banks are different. All of the the floor plates are so very different than uh stuff like that. I worked on that project when I was you know pushing legislation for New York City. So I understand that. Um I think just in terms of vibrating downtown in any which way shape or form at that intersection and probably you know two to 400 yards in any direction is just not what it was even when I first moved here 20 something years ago. So just hoping that that one of these days is cool but this this is pretty cool.

I think Red Burn's done you know quite a bit of good the North Pearl corridor. So you say, you know, at 5:'

I was driving through uh Sunday morning and because of all that residential on North Pearl, there was quite a few people walking around and it was early kind of 5 in the morning and I was like this is a lot different than it was 15 years ago. That's for sure. So I think right but you're right I don't think you know that conversion has come to State Street to get that living component over there yet. I don't know every project that's happening, but they're tough. The conversions are tough to do and you got to, you know, the rents then have to be fairly high. So,

are you guys seeing a a return to office movement that we should say?

Yes. Yes. there the the class A office space in the whole capital district you know there so there was always you know since co there's been a flight to quality so you know your B's and your C products you know because of the vacancies in the A folks were downsizing moving to A space and paying relatively the same amount that they were paying in their B and C space because they've taken less space and that type of thing so there's been so the A space in the in the suburbs is is pretty well leased I think there's not a lot of vacancy you know it's now a point where the B's and the C's have to kind of you know step up and upgrade

yeah so but there is there are tenants I told you there's there was a few tenants when we started this project you know talking to us about large space needs and it was surprising but they they were they're out there well and if I can just jump in on thing the a space I mean remember people these companies are desperate to get the employees back in the office and so they really are

they have that's and and that's happening that's happening across the state it's happening across the country I mean that is in the office markets that's what's happening the the a class a buildings That's not where the issues hurt. Understood.

Any other questions? Staff reports go through them pretty quickly. Um, mostly it was to have the first question and then the 2019 approval which current amendment is going off. So, Sorry. Um, so I know there's this likely will will utilize the parking garage I think you said square but also the parking lot 76 spaces. Will any of those be wired for electric or Yes.

Yes. It will be not a tremendous amount, but they will be and what we're traditionally doing when we press on the LLC was to put some conduits in additional spaces so they don't have to rip it up to do it. So we, you know, if they have two or three fully outfitted, we probably would recommend that they have at least a or expansion and put in the conduits. Anyway, put the conduit in the ground is really inexpensive.

I do want to go back before all our time. Uh the first project on this site that originally started and was the was the driver of the brownfield uh cleanup was the Amos project, right, which was very sizable, huge office building, um had residential units. So quite a bit bigger than anything that's proposed today or was proposed in 2018.

And even though our initial proposals which are, you know, we we took it over in 2015, the first approved project was 2018, but we weren't in front of this board with a project earlier than that that had a ton of office. It truly was more mixed use. It was office mixed use and the hotel. Um, so the and we talked to a ton of, you know, the office thing kept coming and going, coming and going, but you know, in development it's if the deal's there, the deal's there. If it's not there, it's not there. No one's building this speculative office. That's just that's not going to happen. [Music]

I think it's the same Dan used. Um, Just again pointing out that the water usage is anticipated to be lower because of that change from residential to office. Um and the number of surface parking spaces isn't too much of a difference from the 2019 approval. Um and as I mentioned the parking garage

um we referred the project to Al County Planning Board and they had forum issues back to back in August. Um we weren't trying to attend those. I had projects on the 811 meeting. They canceled that. They set it up for 8 25 cancel that one too. So

yeah. So technically we're no longer required to have the recommendations in writing because it'll pass the 30 days. Um so just state that for the record. Um and for seeker um the project we're considering it still falling under the previous negative which was adopted in 2018 along with the part two and part three of the full environmental assessment form. Um there's no significant change in the original 2018 FDF or there was also an additional secret technical memorandum in 2019. Um the demolition of previous structures excavation and construction have all already been completed as noted. um read out some sentences to state for the record that the city of Albony planning board as lead agency previously issued a negative declaration in 2018 which was reaffirmed through a tech memo in 2019 and this 2025 amendment is a reduced intensity of project with fewer residential units lower generation and substantially lower water and sewer demand the site's already been remediated under the brownfield program and storm water sewer improvements provided add benefits No areas of disturbance or environmental concerns are introduced with the proposal and staff concludes that the amendment does not result in any new or different significant adverse environmental impacts. As I mentioned, the fire deck remains valid and no supplemental review is warranted. So that was that's for the record which I think goes more into depth with seeker. We can certainly talk about it if there's any questions, but I think we can move on to the next. Um, as Dan mentioned that the certificate of completion for that round of appreciation, we do have that project file as well. And the only other thing I think we haven't touched on from this slide is

that there's a reduced bulk relative to the original 2018 approval just because of the the mass of the building. Um so even though it's a little bit higher the shadow in fact should be relatively limited and consistent with the fire findings and the shadow is related to the designation. Um, so all the uses are permitted obviously in the MED. We're going off of the original approvals. So the number of affordable units required is reduced than it would be for a brand new project coming into 2025. So that would only be three units, but it does still require the, you know, percentage of indoor outdoor passive or active recreation as well as the onsite laundry. So like Dan mentioned, those four plans will be just that detail at some point. Um all the setbacks are met as well as the inocus coverage. It's in the downtown so 100% is allowed. Um from the original approval um rehab or replacement of the sidewalks might be needed either along Broadway or Spencer. Um and there was originally an internal sidewalk pedestrian pathway that connected from kind of along Black Bush Square up to the office around the parking lot. been requested to be in there as well. Um because we're anticipating that the office building would be kind of the first initial plan, not saying phase, but that would be kind of the priority. Um we're just requesting confirmation of whether there would be any subdivision for those parcels related to financing. So talk about that later. Um and then relative to the shared parking agreement, if there was an exe agreement with a copy of that.

Um like Dan mentioned by GR look for that snow storage just kind of typical code compliance stuff. Um, as Dan also mentioned, the landscaping along the Clacken Bush side where the restaurant is proposed. Um, we would just be looking for something basically equivalent to what was approved previously. So, just a little bit more robust there. Um, there previously weren't street trees required along Broadway, I think, because of the issues with utilities. Um, so just along Spencer Street should be acceptable. Um, and there's a few more details needed getting. We did get preliminary engineering comments um this week, but otherwise we'll be waiting for the official comments from other departments. So, guess we're, you know, looking still for a few more edits and comments from all the other departments. Um, we're not currently recommending action at this meeting. Um, expect a pretty quick turn for the meeting.

We We'd like to get all those comments. Certain to be able to get this done.

A lot of comments, but I point out that a lot of them are repetitious. you know, things that we already knew about that, you know, we had to add. The one the one thing that's giving us a little problem is the pedestrian route through the back of the building going out towards Montgomery Street. Um, if it if it's at all, it's going to be convoluted somewhat by the grade differences in between the the front area there. Uh I don't think we have a handicap accessible through there because we got and we have that narrow area between the plaza in front there. Yeah.

Uh there's a grade difference in there that would make it very difficult to do anything with regard to handicap accessibility. So, but you know, we'll work on trying to satisfy I know I know Brad originally said it's Brad's blue line. Draw a blue line on a plan. So, he wants to see it work to try to satisfy that.

Yeah. I mean, the alternative location or spacing of it is easier. probably work that through and even just the pedestrian connection street as a question on one slide talked about the removal of hazardous soil. Yeah,

yeah, ground was all cleaned up by this.

Third to last. It was a It's just a word. What happens? How do you all It was contaminated. That's what it was. Contaminated. Is there a difference between contaminated and hazardous? They're going to be somewhat interchangeable. All hazardous waste is things that have actual classification to them. Contaminated. So another term, but I you know formally everybody looks at hazardous hazardous waste and hazardous material great amount of removal was done on the site and an issue of issue of completion was issued. Yeah, absolutely. I said this is off. This is not I'm asking about definitions in terms of the soil.

Where do we put it? There there are places that make their money by accepting Auburn, New York. Auburn, New York. Okay. Is that has to No, that's where a lot of that's where a lot of the contaminated soil goes. But on City of Albony land takes there are it depends what what the contaminants are and which where you can bring it. Yeah. Um

that's why I asked about the definition of contaminated. I didn't know if that was the generic term being used in the presentation versus the term art contained versus hazardous. And I know that the state of Michigan just pretty much issued a declaration that New York can no longer take materials from Brown to Michigan to Michigan. Yeah.

So, that's why I'm asking question. Well, uh, as we just said, Melissa just said the the quality of material, you know, I hate to tell you the cost of doing all the chemical test that had to be done on that soil. Um, for every contaminant known demand and whatever was there had to be mitigated and there were different requirements of migating different up to a track one cleanup. So it's the cleanup small portion that couldn't be cleaned but for the most part the whole site is what was what positive there was a gas station

there's a gas station right there in front of the gas station dry cleaners there were multiple multiple Oh wow I mean this was the oldest part of all pre green there was a leather maker shop there in 1780 and the contamination was still there from long list of offenders. Um, I got to get that back here and pay for that removal.

But so there there's a little track four that's next to the um historic buildings because we couldn't um disturb it. So then that's all but that's mostly on the hotel. tiny little details. Is there any other business? We can. Is there a motion to adjourn? Some moved. Second. See no objections. We're at 6:51. I get to see the mask. Yay.