How Many Hotels Do We Need?

The Planning Board meeting on Tuesday went on for 4 hours and 20 minutes. Considering that the meeting started at 6:30, it was 10 minutes shy of 11:00 p.m. when the meeting ended. One of the most interesting and possibly alarming segments of the meeting took place more than three hours in, when the plans for 10-12 Warren Street were presented to the Planning Board.

It will be remembered that this was the building that the City of Hudson sold at auction last August. As Gossips reported at the time, there were two bidders for the building: Alex Freedman, who with his partner, Alex Hammerschlag, restored and renovated 223 and 225 Allen Street and 205-207 Warren Street for market-rate apartments (and two commercial spaces in the Warren Street building); and someone who was bidding on behalf of Benjamin Rinzler, the owner of the Hudson Whaler, at 542 Warren Street, and the Hudson Mariner, at 26 Warren Street. Had Freedman been the winning bidder, the plan for the building would probably have been market-rate apartments, but the winning bidder was the person representing Rinzler, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that the building is to be converted into a hotel. Nevertheless, the first question asked of Walter Chatham, who was making the presentation to the Planning Board, by Theresa Joyner, who chairs the Planning Board, was: "Why a hotel?" Joyner went on to say, "Hudson is in dire need of housing" (a curious statement given that earlier in the meeting a subcommittee of the Planning Board recommended that the number of apartments in the building proposed for 117-121 Fairview Avenue should be reduced by half). 

The plan for converting the building into a 27-room hotel, with no restaurant, involves demolishing two wings at the back of the building and constructing a new three-story addition at the rear.

There would be a landscaped courtyard between the original building and the new addition.

Planning Board member Gini Casasco expressed concern about "overbuilding" (the zoning in this part of the city allows 100 percent lot coverage) and about "multiple hotels in the area." Wm. Farmer and Sons, a little more than a block away on Front Street, has 15 guest rooms, and Hudson Mariner, just up the street at 26 Warren Street, has 5 guest suites. Later Casasco asked, "How many hotels do we need?"

In answer to that question, Gossips looks back at history. In 1905, according to the New York Census for that year, the population of Hudson was 10,290. The Hudson city directory for 1905 lists 25 hotels in the city. Here are their names and locations:

• Adirondack Hotel, Diamond (now Columbia) and Third Streets 
• Albany Hotel, 28 South Front Street
• Barry David, Fountain Head
• City Hall Place, 330 Warren Street
• City Hotel, southeast corner of Allen and Front Streets
• Commercial House, Ferry Street
• Curtiss House, northeast corner of Allen and Front Streets
• Everett House, 705 Warren Street
• Farmers' Hotel, Park Place
• Fifth Ward Hotel, 624 Warren Street
• Franklin Square Hotel, 42 South Front Street
• Germania Hotel, 33-35 South Front Street
• Hotel Central, Warren and South Fifth Streets
• Hotel Lincoln, 309-311 Warren Street
• Hotel Portland, 31 Warren Street
• Hudson House, Ferry Street opposite Franklin Square
• McGraw, Timothy, Jr., 22-24 North Second Street
• Mansion House, 332-334 Diamond (now Columbia) Street
• New York Hotel, 260 Warren Street
• Russian Hotel, 39 South Front Street
• St. Charles Hotel, 737 Columbia Street
• Stevens House, 420 Diamond (now Columbia) Street
• The Worth, 213-219 Warren Street
• The Troy, 11 North Fourth Street
• Winslow Horace, 453 State Street

Today, with a population of 5,894, according to the 2020 census, Hudson has seven hotels:

• The Wick, 41 Cross Street
• Wm. Farmer and Sons, 20 South Front Street
• Hudson Mariner, 26 Warren Street
• The Maker, 302 Warren Street
• Hudson Whaler, 542 Warren Street
• Rivertown Lodge, 731 Warren Street
• St. Charles Hotel, 16 Park Place

Four more have been proposed and gotten site plan approval from the Planning Board:

• Hudson House, 620 Union Street
• Hudson Hotel, 601 Union Street
• Pocketbook Hudson, 549 Washington Street
• Hudson Public, Warren and North Fourth streets

The hotel proposed for 10-12 Warren Street would be Hudson's twelfth hotel.

At one point in the discussion, Chatham defended the location of the proposed hotel by saying, "If you want to organize your city, put your hotels where the train station is." Interestingly, in 1905, eight of the 25 hotels in Hudson--Albany Hotel, City Hotel, Commercial House, Curtiss House, Germania Hotel, Hudson House, Russian Hotel, and Franklin Square--were located within a block and a half of the train station.

Several times during the discussion on Tuesday night, Victoria Polidoro, legal counsel to the Planning Board, reminded the members that if the zoning law allows the use, they cannot question it. She responded to Casasco's question "How many hotels do we need?" by saying, "That's not something the Planning Board has control over." Casasco, however, was not to be deterred, suggesting that there should be a moratorium on development until a new comprehensive plan was completed and new zoning was in place. Joyner called for a committee to look into the zoning and decide on the one thing they wanted to "go after." Apparently a committee was formed, but it is not clear who will serve on this committee.

Seeming somewhat dumbfounded, Chatham told the board, "This is a modest little project. This is not the place to draw the line." Joyner, however, assured him, "This discussion is not going to stop us from going ahead on this project."  

The video of the meeting can be found here. The discussion of this project begins at 3:15:02 and ends at 3:55:15.

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