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HomeMy WebLinkAbout20211077 74 Mitchell St. Site Plan Public Comment 12/6/21, 10:42 AM Zimbra Zimbra susan.barden@saratoga-springs.org Kings Tavern/Mitchell Site Plan From : Patrick Fitch <sa ratogacitytavern @ hotma i l.com> Wed, Dec 01, 2021 08:47 AM Subject : Kings Tavern/Mitchell Site Plan 01 attachment To : susan barden <susan.barden@saratoga-springs.org> CAUTION: This email originated outside of the City network. Please contact IT Support if you need assistance determining if it's a threat before opening attachments or clicking any links. To the Saratoga Springs Planning Board: On behalf of The Kings Tavern, the Fitch Brothers and our Company, Fitch Bros. LTD, we are writing to express our concerns with the proposed project at 74 Mitchell Street, many of which were by conveyed to the Board at the November 18th meetingAdam Fitch. We are Y grateful that the Board agreed to delay voting on the matter until the upcoming December 9thmeetin and it is our hope that a complete vettingof this project will show that it will 9, p have a significantly negative impact on our business, our families and most importantly, our community. As you may know, our family has owned and operated the Saratoga City Tavern and more recently, The Kings Tavern, for almost 2 decades. The Kings Tavern has been a favorite gathering place in Saratoga Springs for 50 years, and we are proud to own and operate a local business that has become such an important part of our community. We are constantly supporting the local community and numerous local charities with events and fundraisers, even during the pandemic and shutdown where we saw little to no paychecks. We believe that our reputation and dedication to Saratoga Springs speaks for itself. We are engrained in this community because we love it and call it home. It is where our children are raised and attend school. We love Saratoga Springs. Being longtime residents of the City, we are concerned about how this proposed development would impact the character and community of the East Side of Saratoga, including our business at The King's Tavern. By converting the open spaces into expensive houses and townhomes, the project will significantly reduce parking around the racetrack during track season, and will push vehicles further into the side streets and local neighborhoods. It will force patrons to walk further to access the main entrance of the racetrack, which in turn will create additional safety issues and interactions between vehicles and pedestrians. It will also force patrons onto the NYRA property and away from businesses like Kings. We rely on this foot traffic for the majority of our revenue generation. Kings does not have its own parking. We lease the lots that are directly on the east and west of our building on a month to month basis. We do not have a lease in place during track season as the owners utilize these lots for paid trackside parking. We are however allowed to park on the lots after track hours with the permission of the property owners as long as all vehicles are removed prior to the next morning. These lots are owned by Rod Sutton and the Stewarts Corporation. The sale and development of the parking lots would greatly impact our ability to operate a profitable business, but more concerning is the impact that it would have on the local https://m.saratoga-springs.org/h/printmessage?id=149258&tz=America/New_York 1/4 12/6/21, 10:42 AM Zimbra roadway parking as well as traffic patterns and congestion. Patrons will be forced to park on East Avenue, often across the street, which will force people to cross East Avenue to access our business. This impact would be experienced 12 months out of the year and be at its highest level during track season. The development will also significantly impact our ability to receive deliveries. We currently receive between 10 and 12 deliveries per week as well as the servicing of our d u m pster. The average duration of a delivery is about 20-30 minutes depending on the product or service in question. The frequency of deliveries just about doubles during track season. This equates to about 5-6 hours of delivery trucks parked at our establishment during the off season and 10-12 hours during the summer season peak. Currently our delivery trucks utilize the Stewarts lot on the corner of East and Union as their loading zone. It has the easiest access for ingress and egress. In addition, it allows us to receive deliveries without impacting the flow of traffic on what is one of the busiest roads and intersections in our city. If this plan is approved in its current configuration, our trucks will have to use either Union Avenue or Snyder Lane for deliveries. The utilization of Snyder Lane by the larger trucks is nearly impossible without driving on the lot directly behind our establishment. The lane is simply too narrow. During track season, Snyder Lane is unusable for even the smaller trucks, as the vehicles parked for the day of races come right up to the boundary of the roadway. This makes Snyder Lane so narrow that even our larger employee cars have difficulty pulling into our employee parking spaces behind our building. Please take note that this lot directly behind our property is not being sold and will remain consistent with its current track parking schedule. Not allowing us to have access to the Stewart's lot for deliveries as a loading zone would create the problem of blocking Snyder Lane, and the access to the additional proposed single family homes for upwards of 12 hours during daytime hours. It would also create a problem when the delivery is complete. As most of our trucks will not be able to make the turn at the end of Snyder, by the racing museum, they would be forced to back out onto East Ave. During track season as there is no access to Snyder Lane as it is too narrow, these trucks would need to park in front of our building on Union Avenue, or perhaps on East Avenue, which would block parking access to our neighboring properties in the rear, or impede traffic at the light on the corner of East and Union. In short, even with a potential designated loading zone on Union or East this is a nightmarish situation during the winter months due to the presence of snow banks, which narrow the roadways already, as well as the congestion during track season. Really the only solution that may be feasible in order to compensate the loss of the corner parking lot is to widen Snyder Lane in order to allow for parking on both sides as well as being passable by large delivery trucks. The Kings Tavern is currently one of the busiest establishments in the City of Saratoga Springs. On a daily basis we average anywhere between 40 and 60 cars parked on our leased lots. This number greatly increases during peak hours which, contrary to popular belief, are not Friday and Saturday nights. We are generally at our busiest from 6-10pm 7 days a week and we are at maximum capacity on Sunday by 1pmfor football. At times there are upwards of 80 vehicles parking in our leased lots. The results of removing the ability of our patrons to park in our leased lots would greatly impact the flow of traffic and the congestion of an already extremely busy intersection, as well as put many citizens of this community at risk by forcing them to cross traffic to get to their vehicles. In addition, many of our patrons leave their vehicles overnight as they are safe in our lot and pick them up the next morning. If our parking is eliminated, these vehicles would otherwise be left on the street, which would have an impact on city snow removal during the winter, as well as tourist access to the main racetrack and the Oklahoma track viewing fence during peak season. While we are by no means against development around our business, it is our concern that the City is considering the approval of a project that caters to the wants of wealthy, out-of- town developers and seasonal residents at the expense of its citizens, all while changing the https://m.saratoga-springs.org/h/printmessage?id=149258&tz=America/New_York 2/4 12/6/21, 10:42 AM Zimbra character of the neighborhood and forever extinguishing the charm and exuberance of the main entrance of the race track. These actions cannot be undone. At the conclusion of the meeting at the end of October, the proposed sale and development of our surrounding property gained our attention as a reality. As a result, we started a petition, as well as posted to our company facebook page in order to increase the awareness of the public. As you can see by the attendance at the November 18th meeting, the Saratoga Springs community is significantly concerned. While we know that the Planning Board meetings are public, the fact of the matter is that our community did not know of this development, and as you can see from the petition (which garnered 1,500 signatures in less than 48 hours and is now close to 2,000), people do not want this project to forever change our community. The vast majority of the people signing the petition call Saratoga Springs their home. They are our firefighters, our police officers, our city employees, nurses, teachers, doctors, attorneys, mothers, fathers, coaches, service industry employees. The list goes on and on. No matter, the walk of life, the message is the same. The Kings Tavern is more than just a corner pub. It is a community that provides a sense of belonging and importance and most of all, FAMILY to many citizens of Saratoga Springs. There are countless testimonials in regards to what The Kings Tavern means to the individual person signing the petition. The petition can be viewed on our facebook page. We can also email, or provide a printed copy at your request. It is our hope that after reading the petition and hearing what our citizens have to say, you will come to the conclusion that this project is not right for Saratoga Springs. We fully understand that we do not own the lots that are used for parking, and we understand that the owners of these properties have the right to sell their land if they choose to do so. However, the City has the ability, through its Planning Board, to guide the development of the City in a way that benefits the many, not the elite few. Especially when those elite few include an out-of-town developer and some wealthy owners who will use their elite "club" for 8 weeks out of the year, only to put Saratoga Springs in their rearview mirror at the conclusion of the racing meet. That has already happened with the one parcel recently developed on Snyder Lane, which now sits vacant for 10 months of the year. If that recent development serves as an example of what is to come of this clubhouse, pool and cabana proposal, there is no question that Saratoga Springs will be worse off if this project is approved. At the conclusion of the November 18thdiscussion of thisJroject board members asked that p those concerned work together to find a solution. We are willing to engage in that process, but are concerned that the developer, his engineering firm and his attorney are pushing this forward without consideration of our concerns, or the concerns of the nearly 2,000 people that have signed our petition to save The Kings Tavern. It is our understanding that this entire project is contingent on the pool and cabana development, such that we still have an opportunity, with the City's assistance, to save our community and family business. We thank you for taking the time to read this e-mail and consider all that we have to say in regards to this matter. We look forward to your response and welcome the opportunity to facilitate an open discussion between the City, the property owners, the developer and the community in the hopes of coming up with the best solution for Saratoga Springs. Patrick Fitch VP/CFO Fitch Bros Ltd 518-788-8040 Unknown <text/html> https://m.saratoga-springs.org/h/printmessage?id=149258&tz=America/New_York 3/4 12/6/21, 10:42 AM Zimbra 16 KB https://m.saratoga-springs.org/h/printmessage?id=149258&tz=America/New_York 4/4