The Fate of Hudson House

Early in 2020, David Kessler presented his plan to develop the McKinstry Mansion at the corner of Seventh and Union streets, which had been the Home for the Aged from 1895 to 2014, as a 50-room boutique hotel to be called Hudson House. The plan involved constructing an addition to the building and included magnificent landscaping designed by Wagner Hodgson.

Over the next year, the plan was reviewed by the Planning Board for site plan approval, by the Historic Preservation Commission for a certificate of appropriateness, and the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) for a PILOT agreement and other tax abatements. Approved by the Planning Board and the HPC, the project entered into an agreement with the IDA on March 1, 2021. Among the terms of that agreement was that the project would be completed in three years, by March 1, 2024.

All of this was happening during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fear and uncertainty engendered by the pandemic caused Kessler's lenders to decide investing in a hotel might not be a good idea and withdraw. As a consequence, work on the project did not proceed as expected, and on March 1, 2024, the project was not completed. Indeed, it hadn't even begun. It was regularly reported that Kessler was seeking other investors. In February 2024, just days before the deadline for completing the project written into the contract with the IDA, Kessler appeared before the HPC seeking a new certificate of appropriateness, which was granted, because the design had not changed since the HPC had granted the original C of A in February 2021.

In the two years since the deadline passed, IDA staff kept in touch with Kessler. In his reports to the IDA, Mike Tucker regularly included 620 Union Street, indicating there was no change in the status of the project and noting that, if the project were to proceed, it would require an entirely new application. 

At the IDA meeting today, Jonathan Spampinato, who took over as administrative director of the IDA on June 15, said he had met with Kessler and asked him to schedule a meeting with the IDA, with his lawyers and lenders present, to explain his intentions. Because no such meeting was scheduled, Spampinato sent a letter to Kessler on June 29, which he emailed on July 30, explaining that the IDA would, at today's meeting, be considering a resolution to authorize a recapture process to the recoup the $25,000 of exempted mortgage recording tax received by the project. That resolution can be found here. (Scroll down twelve pages to find it.) At today's meeting, the resolution was approved.

There are also taxes owed on 620 Union Street, and city treasurer Heather Campbell, who serves on the IDA, wondered if 62o Union Street might belong on the foreclosure list. "If he doesn't come current with the taxes," Campbell asked, "what happens to the property?" Christine Chale, legal counsel to the IDA, advised, "Foreclosure would be a separate process. The City would have to follow up." Meanwhile, the missed payments are in default of the agreement with the IDA.

Gossips followed this project closely in 2o2o and 2o21, during its review by the Planning Board, the HPC, and the IDA. Gossips will follow it closely through this process as well.

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