Trustees Move Hotel Project Forward

COOPERSTOWN – The Village Board this evening heard the proposal from BTP Cooperstown LLC partner Tom Lagan for a downtown hotel and took the two steps necessary to move the proposal forward:  Accepted “lead agency” responsibility under SEQRA, and forwarded the plan to the village Planning Board.

“This is clearly the biggest project to hit Main Street in a long time,” said Mayor Jeff Katz, in asking the village trustees to accept “lead agency” status.  “The heat should fall on the ‘electeds.'”

In addition to Lagan, Teresa Drerup, partner in Altonview Architects, representing the applicants, said all parking for the hotel will be valet parking, with cars put in 31 spaces behind the building.  Drerup, who also chairs the village’s H-PARB, said 31 is the amount of spaces required under the village code.

Her husband, Kurt Ofer, partner in Altonview, then reviewed a schematic showing the four-story hotel building is not out of proportion with other buildings downtown, and would “bookend” a stretch of buildings, with the iron-clad building being the other bookend.

Drerup, in discussing plans for a seasonal bar, restaurant and pool on the roof, pointed out that, with a “parapet” in the front of the building, activity there would not be visible from Main Street sidewalks.

Katz also reported that he had convened a pre-meeting on the project with the developers, who include Perry Ferrara, owner of the Heroes of Baseball Wax Museum, and Bob Hurley, who operates local Subway franchises, that was also attended by Trustee Cindy Falk and representatives of the Planning Bard, H-PARB, and the Zoning Board of Appeals.

He said that such meetings were also convened in the Lakefront Hotel and Cooperstown Distillery projects.