Developers of the proposed Water Street Hotel were back before the Village of New Paltz Planning Board last week for both a public hearing and application review. By the end of the night, the public hearing remained open and the application review was still a work in progress.
The 28-room, three-story inn proposed for a property located at 11 Water Street is the latest project by co-developers Jesse Halliburton and Ryan Giuliani, who previously opened the Woodstock Way Hotel. Halliburton is the owner and principal broker of Prime Real Estate Group in New Jersey, while Giuliani is president and co-founder of boutique hospitality firm Giuliani Social alongside his wife, Mary Giuliani.
The Water Street Trails Hotel is planned alongside the Wallkill River and the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail, and would include replacing the sprawling former box factory currently standing on the .82-acre property with a three-story hotel with a little over 7,500-square feet per floor. A 340-square-foot kitchen for a small cafe and lounge is also part of the plan. A proposed 8,250-square foot patio was reduced in scope to 6,100 square feet last December, saving 22 trees initially earmarked for removal.
The property is part of the Gateway (G) District, which according to village zoning code, “corresponds with lands bounded by the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail on the west, Water Street to the north and northeast, Mohonk Avenue to the east, Pencil Hill Road to the east and Plains Road to the east.”
Since last appearing at a mid-summer planning board meeting, the project has seen its proposed parking spots drop to 31, two below the municipal requirement for a hotel of its size. Because of the size and dimensions of the property, as well as its proposed use — including the cafe, which may or may not be open to non-guests — developers and the planning board have grappled with the parking lot, as well as many other issues, with both sides looking to find solutions over the past year-plus.
At a meeting held on Tuesday, January 2, the planning board voted to declare itself lead agency on the project, and to refer it to the Ulster County Planning Board, a critical step in the development process. But they also agreed to continue reviewing a significant portion of the environmental assessment form (EAF) at their next meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, January 16. And after hearing numerous concerns from neighbors of the property, a public hearing held last week was left open for at least one more meeting.
Traffic and safety concerns for cars and pedestrians has long been an issue for the Water Street Hotel, and it continues to be in 2024 despite developers attempting to tackle some of them.
In the past, those concerns have included access for emergency services, with New Paltz Fire Department chief Cory Wirthmann and department of public works superintendent Gene Bleu Terwilliger attempting last spring to simulate an emergency response with a fire truck using the specifications detailed in the then-current draft of the proposal. Using the proposed dimensions of the property’s access points, they reported difficulty in maneuvering without potentially hitting a curb, as well as concerns about multiple vehicles navigating on site and along the street.
Representing the developers, Creighton Manning Engineering, LLP shared changes including relocating off-street parking from the east side of the lot to the building face and the installation of back-to-back mountable curbs along the site’s frontage to allow for oversteering of large vehicles like fire trucks.
At a meeting of the planning board held on Tuesday, August 1, some members of the public shared concerns about issues like water usage and traffic and safety relating to the development.
“We are very concerned about the extremely dangerous intersection that exists already where Water Street meets Mohawk Avenue meets Plains Road,” said Jaimee Uhlenbrock. “There’s a blind curve, and anyone coming in one direction or the other on that blind curve could actually have a very fatal accident.”
But other potential issues remain, at least in the public eye.
Vincent Variano, a neighbor of the property and a retired engineer, said he drives past the property “at least three times a day” and said that the combination of tight corners and satellite navigation programs directing traffic through the area already makes it a treacherous area, even before adding hotel guests.
“If you were given the assignment of designing the worst set of intersections in existence, this would be pretty darn close to it,” Variano said. “The mapping programs have identified Mohonk Avenue and also Plains Road up to 208 as a shortcut when Main Street is blocked from tourist traffic leaving our town towards the Thruway. So that has really brought a lot of unexpected and very unfortunate incidents down to that neck of the woods. It isn’t just us local people that are kind of concerned with traffic increase and added congestion that this hotel might bring, but there’s other forces at work that are much larger.”
Fellow neighbor Ted Cryer agreed.
“This is a very complex intersection with blind spots and limited visibility from above and behind the incoming traffic on both Mohonk Avenue and coming down Pencil Hill Road,” Cryer said. “Whether you’re entering onto Water Street and Plains Road respectively on numerous occasions each year we have encountered dilemmas with oncoming traffic, not using turn signals, so guessing which direction is correct … You really need to look at how complex this is, not just the volume of traffic that goes through there in a certain time of the day. It just looks like it’s problematic.”
But not everyone who spoke during last week’s public hearing opposed the proposed Water Street Hotel. Melanie Cronin, owner of the Cronin Gallery in nearby Water Street Market, said the hotel would be a welcome change from the disused building currently on the property.
“I think that the current brown box building from an aesthetic perspective is horrible,” Cronin said.“I’m excited to see the hotel that’s proposed.”
Cronin also welcomed the idea of visitors who aren’t just stopping in New Paltz on their way to the rail trail or the Minnewaska State Park Preserve.
“They come in, they use our parking spaces, they might grab some food and they use our trails and they blow out of town,” she said. “People who come and stay for days actually tend to be our customers. So I’m excited to have people come into our community and explore the community, not just get food and leave.”
Cronin added that the hotel would benefit the community in other ways, too.
“They’ll be paying school taxes,” Cronin said. “This is a tax base where they won’t be using our schools, but they’ll be paying into the school system…Also, they’re going to be bringing in more sales tax. Those are things we need.”
The Water Street Hotel will be back on the planning board’s agenda on January 16, both as an application review and public hearing. After that, it remains to be seen.
“It’s no one’s fault that things are still moving on,” said planning board member Rich Souto. “But it’s just the nature of a project like this that has questions that then get answered that then create amendments to several aspects of the documentation.”
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