NEVELE SOLD FOR $5M
Developers plan to demolish buildings to make way for housing
WAWARSING, N.Y. >> The former Nevele resort has been sold for $5 million to 1100 Arrow LLC as part of plans by New York Citybased developer Somerset Partners to demolish remnants of former Borscht Belt hotel in favor of a new facility with lodging, accompanied by a 126-unit housing development.
Developers on Sept. 29 closed on the purchase from Star Nevele Owner LLC, which had bought the two-parcel site totaling 497.5 acres in 2018 for $27.92 million.
Officials have been cautiously optimistic about the potential economic impact of the project since the application was filed in July 2021.
“The biggest issues that the town has … are jobs and housing,” said Councilman Paul Tuzzolino. “Some of the things that we have been working on have been tied to the Nevele project.”
Tuzzolino was encouraged that developers are seeking to have the residential component of the project include units that are expected to be affordable for middle-income families.
“There’s a lot of better-paying jobs with benefits and the Nevele project includes workforce housing as well as a higher-end hotel environment,” he said. “One of the problems we have in the area is we really don’t have nice motel space.”
Under the plan, developers expect to construct a 68-room main lodge hotel, a 60-room condo hotel, and 10 rooms in ledge cottages. There would also be 46 units of single-family homes, 44 units of townhouses, and 36 units of multi-family village estates.
“It is also important to note that the redevelopment of the Nevele at the existing project site will require demolition of
the out-of-date building elements currently visible on the landscape and replacement of those facilities with new construction,” they wrote.
Developers in the state environmental quality review submission wrote that the new facility would not have the same visual impact highlighted by the 10-story building that got its name “Presidential tower” after it was used by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966 shortly after it was completed.
“It is clear that the elimination of the unsightly 110-foot-tall Presidential tower will reduce the visual prominence of the site when viewed from a distance,” developers wrote.
Among the plans is to have the former 18-hole golf course transformed “into a low maintenance landscape with focused native planting, areas of passive wilderness, (and) selective botanic display and cultivation gardens.”
Town Supervisor Terry Houck said the sale is a significant milestone but was reluctant to become overly optimistic given the history of developers who have come to the area with plans that never fully got traction.
“We’ve been promised a lot of things for a long time,” he said.
“It is what it is and … we hope that it comes to fruition,” Houck said. “If and when it does it’s going to be great for the community.”
The site was last used in July 2009 as the Nevele Grande, a combination of the former Nevele and Fallsview hotels that had 100 employees when it closed. The owners had accumulated $342,687.22 in property tax debt that was ultimately paid three months later as well as more than $250,000 that was later paid to the Ellenville school district.
Community optimism rose in February 2012 when the court cleared the site for sale — for $24.58 million in April 2012 — with a sense of urgency brought on by having gaming company Navegante submit an ultimately unsuccessful application for casino gambling. That was followed by about four years of discussions involving Navegante developing the site as a sports complex, which died when the bank closed on the company’s loan and sold it to Star Owner LLC.