Cioni Building buyer plans hotel, spa
Uptown project by NYC-based developer is to include amenities at neighboring site
The Board of Education has approved selling the Kingston school district’s Cioni Building to a New York City-based developer who wants to create a hotel and spa there and also establish hotel amenities, including a pool, in a building across the street.
It would be the third hotel under development in a span of just a few blocks of Uptown Kingston.
The board voted unanimously Wednesday night to sell the building at 61 Crown St. for $4.25 million to a group called 61 Crown Street LLC, whose principal is Neil Bender of BRE Properties in Manhattan. Bender’s $4.25 million offer, submitted under the BRE name, was the highest of four bids opened by district officials last Friday.
Bender, who also owns several well-known properties in Northern Dutchess, bid more than twice what the school district was told to expect for the Cioni Building, and his offer far surpassed the second-highest bid of $1.8 million.
The Cioni Building houses the Kingston school district’s administrative offices. Those offices are to move to the former Frank L. Meagher Elementary School on Wynkoop Place in Midtown Kingston, and at least $1 million from the Cioni sale will help fund the Meagher renovation. The Meagher project, which was approved by district voters in May and also is to include the creation of a prekindergarten
center, is expected to cost about $4.2 million.
BRE’s bid states the school district can take up to two years to vacate the Cioni Building. The district has said it expects to move out sometime in 2019.
Documents submitted to the district with the $4.25 million bid state 61 Crown Street LLC plans to create a “destination” hotel and spa.
“We believe our project is an opportunity to invigorate this section of the Stockade District and integrate Crown Street with the more active parts of the district,” the proposal states.
“The central hall on each floor will be opened up to become an inviting two-story atrium, flanked on the first floor by large event spaces,” the proposal also states. “Hotel rooms will be located on the second
floor. Original ceiling heights and window openings will be maintained.”
The Cioni Building, a former school, measures 22,680 square feet and sits on 1.25 acres.
The Cioni Building bid document submitted by BRE also refers to developing the roof to “give guests a fantastic vantage point for viewing the surrounding town and the bucolic Catskills,” and it says “additional amenities for the project will be provided in [the] renovated 317 Wall Street building, such as a pool, exercise rooms, racquetball courts and other gym facilities.”
Information from Ulster County shows the property at 317 Wall St., the rear of which is across from the Crown Street side of the Cioni property, was purchased in December 2015 by a group called 317 Wall Street LLC, which has the
same New York City mailing address that Bender has used on applications for building permits.
Word of Bender planning a hotel at the Cioni Building comes as New York City developer Charles Blaichman is in the process of turning the building at 301 Wall St. into a nine-room boutique hotel. Blaichman also is planning a 14room hotel at nearby 41 Pearl St.
The bid documents submitted by BRE note that Bender has recently purchased numerous properties in Northern Dutchess, including the Rhinecliff Hotel, Foster’s Coach House in Rhinebeck, “several other properties located in downtown Rhinebeck” and the Heermance Farm in Red Hook.
••• In other business Wednesday, the Kingston school board agreed to negotiate a contract for Ulster BOCES to use of the former Anna Devine Elementary School in Rifton.
“I’m very excited about this because we made a commitment to the community when we decided to close [some] elementary schools that we would find new purposes for them,” said board member James Shaughnessy. “It’s been an arduous process, but the sale of the Cioni Building and finding a good use for Anna Devine completes that process, and the voters approved a referendum to renovate Meagher.”
The school district’s former Sophie Finn Elementary School on Mary’s Avenue in Kingston has been turned into a satellite campus of SUNY Ulster, and the former Zena Elementary School in Woodstock was sold to a private music school.