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Flowers won’t be the only thing blooming come spring 2019; for some, the opening of the Hyatt Place Hotel will also breathe new life to the Poughkeepsie community. Houlihan Lawrence Commercial Group, a real estate brokerage for suburbs around New York City, recently announced the groundbreaking on the 93-room hotel on Route 9 and predict its completion for the spring following next.
The Hyatt Place Hotel will be built atop a piece of land that has been vacant for the past 30 years. Kenneth M. Stenger, a real estate attorney for Stenger, Roberts, Davis & Diamond, LLP representing the project, explained that getting the “go-ahead” from the town of Poughkeepsie required many steps, from receiving approval from the planning board of the site plan to seeking tax relief.
“We requested…that tax would be phased in over 10 years to make it more affordable throughout the construction period as their business grows,” says Stenger. Despite these obstacles, Stenger says that his law firm is excited to be a part of a project “that will bring roughly a million dollars a year to the Poughkeepsie area.”
Those working closely on the project, including Nicholas Licari, Associate Real Estate Broker of Houlihan Lawrence Commercial Group and Erfan Kahn, President of Empire Hotel Development, Inc., expect the hotel to generate roughly $500,000 a year in tax revenue and the same in salaries to the community. They anticipate the Hyatt Place Hotel will provide jobs to 100 people between the full time hotel staff and those needed for construction.
Investors, developers, and attorneys alike believe that the Hyatt Place Hotel will portray Poughkeepsie as a bustling business and tourist destination. “This hotel development will be a great benefit to Dutchess County,” Licari says, believing the hotel will help in “boosting tourism, providing jobs, and increasing tax revenue for the local economy.”
However, not all parties involved in the project agreed from the beginning that the hotel would grant Poughkeepsie such an allure. Dutchess County’s Industrial Development Agency (IDA) originally identified the Hyatt Place Hotel as a “select service” hotel rather than a tourist hotel. This means that the hotel will be considered one that attracts a higher-end clientele than its local competitors as well as attract repeat customers. The Dutchess County IDA’s approval of the hotel as a tourism destination is needed in order for the project to receive assistance.
Stenger eventually convinced the IDA, though, that project would be worth it, adding that “the empty lot only brought in $17,000 a year on tax revenue and that the Spackenkill School District can’t survive without development.” He reminded the IDA that the project will generate much more than that in annual salaries and taxes and that there are numerous benefits of opening a tourism destination in the area. With that, the town of Poughkeepsie and the Spackenkill School District amended the tax code in order to aid the project. Stenger, Licari, and Kahn believe the Hyatt Place Hotel will provide a crucial economic boost to Dutchess County.
