Groundbreaking set for long-planned inn/spa
The Mirbeau development is to be built at 46 W. Market St., just west of the village center.
RHINEBECK, N.Y. » A groundbreaking in to be held Monday at the site of the longproposed Mirbeau Inn & Spa.
The event is scheduled for 11 a.m. at 46 W. Market St. in the village of Rhinebeck.
Mirbeau Hospitality partner Jonathan Dal Pos said the project will be an asset to the village when it opens in fall 2019.
“This is such a front-andcenter site within the village of Rhinebeck ... and I think the community was looking for this unproductive site to be turned into a very productive site,” Dal Pos said Thursday. “I think a hotel, spa and restaurant is a perfect use for that site, which is right in the heart of downtown, to be able to draw the tourism.”
Dal Pos said the spa and restaurant will be open to the public. He declined to provide an estimated cost for the project.
“Our typical draw for Mirbeau resorts ... is substantially the local population because our spa has a great day spa following within about a half-hour drive of the spa,” Dal Pos. “On the hotel side we expect to have a much longer pull, so we do expect the New York City metropolitan market to frequent the hotel . ... But we expect a lot of the Hudson Valley region to use the hotel and all of our amenities as a getaway destination.”
The Mirbeau Inn & Spa will include 50-room hotel and aim to attract an upscale clientele, according to the company’s website.
“Based on the Mirbeau philosophy of balancing life with wellness and indulgence, the world-class Mirbeau Inn & Spa Rhinebeck will be reminiscent of an old-world chic parisian hotel, yet with all the modern comforts that today’s travelers expect,” the website states.
There also are Mirbeau Inn & Spa locations in Skaneateles, N.Y., and Plymouth, Mass.. Additionally, a day spa called Spa Mirbeau opened in Albany in the fall of 2017.
The Rhinebeck project first was proposed in 2005 as an 80-room hotel. The application was withdrawn in 2007 amid complaints from the public, and Mirbeau President Gary Dower said at the time that there were “several locations in the Hudson Valley” that could better accommodate such a project.
The proposal resurfaced in Rhinebeck in 2008 as a 36-unit condominium project, but that effort, too, drew objections.
The developer was granted an area variance for the housing project in 2009, but by the fall of 2013, the project had reverted to a hotel and spa, though with fewer rooms than originally planned.
Unsuccessful court challenges to the proposal followed, and the Mirbeau project received the final zoning variances it needed in January 2016.