PEEKSKILL, N.Y. The Holiday Inn Express planned for corner of John Walsh Boulevard and Louisa Street in Peekskill is moving forward once again after the developer was able to acquire funding.
Director of Economic Development James Slaughter and Acting City Manager Brian Havranek gave an update on the project at Monday night's Peekskill Committee of the Whole meeting, and told city council members that the project was moving forward after a lengthy delay due to problems acquiring funding due to the recession.
The city and the developer, George Liaskos, had hoped to build the hotel to meet requirements for platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, the most environmentally advanced LEED certifications. However the developer is now looking to build the motel to meet the less stringent silver standard, Havranek said.
The developer would be changing the room configuration slightly for cost saving reasons, increasing the number of rooms from 72 to 76.
"He's able to do that by making certain modifications to his existing configuration of the hotel where he has bridal suites and other rooms he could reconfigure, which were one and a half or two times the size as a normal room," Slaughter said. "He is not altering the basic structure."
As part of the new plan, the city would extend the payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement with the developer from 10 to 15 years and rewrite the loan agreement with the city for $500,000
City officials will also start working on a 3 percent hotel tax that would apply to the Holiday Inn and other city hotels, motels and possibly bed and breakfasts if such lodging is built in the city.
Peekskill officials expect the work to start in mid-June or early July, with construction work expecting to take around nine months.
Mayor Mary Foster said she was excited to see the project moving forward again after the long delay.
"I know everybody has worked so hard to get it to this point, so congratulations," she told the two men.
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