City says Hoosick Street hotel will benefit from nearby RPI, hospitals

Backers of a new Hilton Garden Inn on Hoosick Street say one of the region's busiest roads will bring plenty of customers to their doorstep.

The street is part of Route 7, which connects the Capital Region and all of New York with southern Vermont. And the hotel's proximity to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and two local hospitals will also help ensure its success, they say.

"This is a road that has been planned to death and studied to death," Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian said at a news conference Tuesday morning to disclose plans for the hotel. "People are coming to Troy in record numbers ... We have always said that more must be done to capitalize on the traffic flows here."

During the news conference, with the sounds of vehicles in the background, Tutunjian and others detailed the $20 million project, which could open in a year. It would be owned and operated by Hoosick Hospitality LLC, a company created for the project.

Also on hand during was Donald Led Duke, a member of the operating company and principal of BBL Construction Services LLC in Albany.

"It's a great site," Led Duke said. "There's a need here -- we're trying to fill a need."

In June, BBL opened a Hilton Garden Inn opposite Albany Medical Center on New Scotland Avenue in Albany.

Officials say the Troy hotel would be the third in the city.

It would be built on the site of a former mansion turned into a medical building, which now is a vacant lot. Located opposite a Rite-Aid drugstore, the 3.74-acre site is L-shaped; the seven-story hotel would be built near the front of the site. It would have 125 rooms, 13,000 square feet of meeting space, two restaurants and some retail stores.

Construction is expected to start later this year.

It's an addition that would be welcome, RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson said in a statement released after the news conference.

"As Rensselaer has grown exponentially over the last several years, so too has our need to accommodate the ever-increasing number of visitors to campus," she said. "Plans for this and other new hotel space in Troy is welcome news."

Backers will meet with the city Zoning Board of Appeals this week to ask for a variance on the height -- 18 feet taller than the allowed 70 feet -- as well as for a setback variance. The project will go before the Planning Board Sept. 27, when a public hearing will be held.

Officials said the project is in a commercially zoned district, and is in keeping with a rezoning plan adopted three years ago.

Hoosick Hospitality plans to finance the project through the industrial development agency to save on taxes. State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, who attended the news conference, said he remembered when Troy topped a list of distressed cities in upstate New York.