Resort seeks $96K sales tax break for expansion

The Ulster County Industrial Development Agency has agreed to hold a public hearing in Shandaken on the Full Moon Resort’s request to be exempted from about $96,000 in sales taxes for construction of 10 cottages and a wedding pavilion on the resort property.

Resort owner Creative Environments LLC said there also will be cosmetic renovations to 22 existing hotel units at the resort, which is in the Shandaken hamlet of Big Indian.

“We’re replacing a wedding tent, which we’ve had in place since we started, with a permanent roof structure ... that will allow us to mitigate weather factors,” co-owner Henry Stout told the Industrial Development Agency board at its most recent meeting.

The new pavilion is proposed to be 4,200 square feet. The cottages would be 375 square feet each. Other proposed work includes a restroom area with a septic system and changing rooms for the pool.

The entire project is to cost about $1.2 million and provide lodging for up to 20 additional people.

“We embarked on a plan to upgrade the facility and ... accommodate the guests that were already attending events at Full Moon but had to travel elsewhere to sleep,” Stout said. “Our core business is wedding events ... where guests arrive on a Friday and depart on a Sunday.”

The Full Moon, which dates to the late 1800s, was bought by Creative Environments in 2000, and the owners have been working to develop it as destination wedding location.

“The facility was in terrible shape in 2000,” Stout said. “Many recommendations were actually to demo sections of the place ... but we felt like it was really a beautiful place that deserved to be revitalized.”

The expansion application says the Full Moon has 28 full-time and 14 part-time employees and that it expects to add two full-timers and three part-timers over the next two years.

The resort is on Valley View Road, between Oliverea Road (county Route 47) and the Esopus Creek, in the Big Indian.