Hotel plan presented in Medina
Courtesy Medina Planning Board: The proposed 58-room hotel in Medina will look similar to this Cobblestone Suites hotel in Pennsylvania.
Cobblestone Suites proposes 58 rooms on Maple Ridge Road
MEDINA – The Village Planning Board has received the initial application for a new Cobblestone Inn and Suites hotel on Maple Ridge Road, next to Pride Pak and almost across the street from Genesee Community College.
The 3-story hotel includes 58 rooms with a 10,557-square-foot building. This will be Cobblestone’s first project in New York.
“This will be more of a hotel than we expected,” said Chris Busch, chairman of the Village Planning Board.
The board accepted the application as complete during its meeting on Tuesday. But the project needs a review from the Orleans County Planning Board. It also needs a height variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. The village code limits buildings to 35 feet in height in the industrial district. The Cobblestone hotel peaks at 55 feet.
The Medina Planning Board set a public hearing for the site plan for 7:10 p.m. on Oct. 3 at City Hall on Main Street.
Cobblestone Inn and Suites has built about 80 hotels with most of them in small towns, typically working with investors in the host community. An investor from Pennsylvania is leading the effort to build the project in Medina.
The proposal includes 65 parking spaces, an outdoor patio, sidewalks and a dumpster enclosure.
“We’re at the first stages for what we’ve all been waiting for,” Michael Sidari, Medina mayor, said after Tuesday’s meeting.
The new hotel should keep visitors in the community longer, helping local businesses, he said. Many visitors currently just make day trips for events such as Thomas the Train, Wine About Winter and other activities. Overnight stays will make it easier for visitors to check out more sites in the community, Sidari said.
The Orleans Economic Development Agency has been working on enticing a developer to the county for several years.
The hotel would be built on land owned by the EDA. The EDA hired a consultant in 2014 to study the market for a hotel in Medina. Interim Hospitality Consultants concluded that a small hotel with 41 to 49 rooms would be profitable in the community.
That study was critical in convincing Cobblestone to come to Medina, said Janice Tata, vice president of development for BriMark Builders, which oversees construction of the Cobblestone hotels.
Photo by Tom Rivers: Stuart Sell, president of construction for BriMark Builders, goes over the site plan during Tuesday’s Village of Medina Planning Board meeting. He is joined by Janice Tata, vice president of development for BriMark.
BriMark also sees the activity in Medina, with a bustling downtown business district and other thriving manufacturing sites in the community. (Takeform Architectural Graphics, for example, is working on a 15,000-square-foot expansion on Maple Ridge. Pride Pak also opened its new facility a year ago.)
“There is so much going on in the community,” Tata said.
BriMark and Cobblestone also were welcomed by Medina and county leaders, she said. Sidari and EDA officials attended a grand opening celebration in Pennsylvania a year ago for the Cobblestone hotel.
Gabrielle Barone, the EDA’s vice president of business development, also has attended Cobblestone conferences, trying to connect with a developer for a project in Orleans County.
The Orleans EDA has wanted a chain-style hotel in the community. It’s something business leaders notice when they visit the community, Barone said.
“It’s been a disadvantage not having one,” she said.
Having a new hotel should result in visitors spending more money in the community, boosting revenues for businesses, and sales and bed taxes for the county.
The study for the hotel also identified potential customers as people visiting the area for weddings, reunions, and family events, as well as people working in sales and working short term for some local companies.
Stuart Sell, president of construction for BriMark Builders, discussed the site plan with the Planning Board. Sell said BriMark wants to work with local suppliers and contractors on the project.
He expects it will take seven to eight months to construct the hotel, once construction starts.
Speaking with a reporter after the meeting, Sell didn’t want to put out a construction time frame publicly, for when the project could start and be done. BriMark and Cobblestone need to secure the local approvals for the project.
“It comes down to the weather,” Sell told the village planners. “We can work through the winter once the foundation is in.”
