Roedel Companies wins REDC award

Source - The Legislative Gazette

By Jill Montag

When David Roedel and other members of his family found out their company had been awarded a grant from New York State to breathe new life into a historic hotel in The Adirondacks, it was both a professional and a personal victory. The family has ties to Saranac Lake going back four generations, and now plans to make a major mark on the community. “I think we try very hard to keep things business-like,” says Roedel, a Partner in Roedel Companies. “We try to keep emotion out of things. But you can’t help but have a lot of pride when you can not only do a good project but at the same time help a community which everyone holds so dear.”

Roedel Companies, an integrated hotel investment, construction and management company based in New Hampshire, received a 5 million dollar grant from The Regional Economic Development Council to help renovate and restore Hotel Saranac in Saranac Lake. The Regional Economic Development Council initiative was instituted by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2011 as part of an overall strategy to redesign the state’s approach to economic development, with the goal being to turn it from a topdown model into a community-based and performance-driven approach. The council recently awarded 715.9 million dollars in funding to projects across the state, including this major undertaking by Roedel Companies.

Hotel Saranac was built in 1927 as a luxury resort hotel in downtown Saranac Lake; it was a center of the community for decades before falling into disrepair. Roedel Companies plans to completely refurbish the hotel back to its original grandeur. The end result will be a historic hotel with about 85 rooms, a grand ballroom and restaurants, support facilities, and other amenities such as coffee shops, bakeries and salons.

Without help from the state, Roedel says this 17 million dollar project would not have been possible. “The building is at a place now where without an extensive investment it would really fall into functional obsolescence,” he explains. “Without the 5 million dollar grant, economically from a business point of view it just costs too much money to put into the building. It wouldn’t have been a strict private investment. There would have been no return to a private investor. Working together with the state we think it’s really a win-win for everybody.” The plan is not only to bring back a historic building to this Adirondack community, but also to have a major economic impact on residents and businesses. Roedel expects the project will have an economic impact to the community of around 10 million dollars a year, “so over 10 years it’s a 100 million dollar impact into the Saranac Lake region with overnight guests coming through, what they spend, construction jobs, things of that nature.”

That is one of the reasons why Roedel believes the Regional Economic Development Council saw this project as a must. “I think everyone is on the same page on really what is the economic impact of a hotel of this stature in that community - bringing not just tourists in but also satisfying the needs of local businesses. I think everyone said, ‘boy, that’s something we should do.’ On the other hand it’s also a historic landmark and unfortunately if you allow historic landmarks to get in too bad of disrepair they fall beyond the capabilities of private individuals to bring them back...We felt pretty strongly that someone should step up and get the state’s assistance or this building could be lost forever.”

It helps that the community is strongly behind this project. “Fortunately in that area the community support is really off the charts,” says Roedel. “For example, we started our Facebook page the day the grant was announced, and we had over 500 likes in under 24 hours. it’s just amazing the engagement we have in the community. In our opinion it’s really the community’s hotel. We’re just really the stewards of the hotel. We’re the stewards of the grant from the state of New York, and we just really feel strongly it’s a win-win for all involved.”

The project is currently in the design phase, and workers have already started cleaning out the building and doing select demolition. The company is also going through the process of applying for federal and state tax credits because the hotel is going on the historic registry. The revitalized Hotel Saranac should be open for business sometime in 2015. Roedel believes it will make a big difference to the area.

“I think the Saranac Lake community is more than just a small adirondack town,” he says. “It’s really sort of a hub of business in the North Country. With two colleges, a hospital, and businesses the area really needs the support of an upscale hotel and modern accommodations....Once that hotel is up and running and open again it really should act as really a boost to the whole downtown main street community. I think it’s very important to the region to have a vibrant downtown Saranac Lake.”