Published in the Altamont Enterprise on Thursday, August 22, 2024
GUILDERLAND — A developer is asking an Albany County court to void paperwork for a potential land deal that could possibly spoil any future transactions for the property after the prospective buyer welched on the sales agreement.
On Aug. 6, a lawsuit filed by Pine Bush Senior Living LLC — which had planned to develop 86 units of affordable senior housing on New Karner Road amid the Albany Pine Bush — asks the court to officially terminate a purchase and sales agreement it had with Pine Bush Parc LLC for 51 acres at 20, 22, and 24 New Karner Road.
Pine Bush Parc is a limited liability company associated with the Markstone Group, the development firm behind Hamilton Parc, a luxury senior living facility on State Farm Road, and the proposed Foundry Square Planned Unit Development at the corner of Western Avenue and Foundry Road.
The Albany Business Review was the first to report about the suit.
Court documents state that the two sides entered into a purchase and sales agreement on Jan. 10, 2023, which had a closing scheduled for Jan. 25, 2023. But the death of the property’s actual owner, Martin J. Kehoe, on Jan. 24, 2023 put a kink in the plan.
Pine Bush Senior Living LLC does not own the four parcels that make up the 51-acre property; it has a longstanding purchase and sales agreement with Kehoe’s now-estate.
Following Kehoe’s death, the sides agreed to extend the closing date until March 31, 2023. Pine Bush Parc subsequently requested that the closing date be extended three more times, until May 31 of this year, when no one from the company showed up to close the $2.54 million deal.
On May 31, following the no-show, Pine Bush Senior Living’s lawyer sent an email to Pine Bush Parc’s attorney “stating that based upon Defendant’s failure to appear and attend the Closing, Plaintiff was concluding/terminating the transaction, deeming the PSA cancelled.”
A purchase and sales agreement is a legally binding document, so Pine Bush Senior Living is seeking “a judicial determination by this Court rendering the PSA finally and completely terminated,” court papers state, allowing Pine Bush Senior Living to sell “the Property to a different seller without the threat of litigation, no matter how frivolous it may be, from Defendant.”
Senior living workforce housing, then nothing
First presented to the town approximately a decade ago by an earlier iteration of Pine Bush Senior Living LLC, the development proposal was for 96 independent-living units and a two-story 96-unit assisted-living facility for people with memory problems.
The project needed a rezone from Business Non-Retail Professional to Planned Unit Development to make it work, which it ultimately received, in 2017.
In 2021, the local law that established the PUD was amended to replace the 96 independent-housing units with 86 mixed-income, affordable senior-housing apartments.
The proposal had its necessary approvals from the town, but had yet to secure financing. So, Pine Bush Senior Living had partnered with affordable-housing developer NRP Group to pursue tax-credit financing for the project but, after applying twice for state funding, had no success.
Tim Cassidy of Pine Bush Senior Living told the town board in August of last year that he was told by the upstate administrator of the tax-credit program he was unlikely to be successful in his pursuit of state aid due to the area’s unfavorable Census Tract ranking.
During the same August 2023 meeting, a meeting in which the Guilderland Town Board was due to vote on an extension to the local law that amended the 2017 PUD law, Cassidy ultimately ended up pulling the project because of a change to his proposal.
What was initially proposed and approved as income-restricted senior housing had become “workforce housing,” a designation which restricts its residents’ income to between 60 and 120 percent of area median income, which in Guilderland is approximately $102,000 per year.
With the town board unclear as to the exact nature of his proposal, Cassidy said he would pull his application and restart the approval process, which was not the case.
Editor’s note: The 51 acre parcel referenced in this article is located near the center of the Pine Bush and would be perfect for acquisition. I hope the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission and the Town of Guilderland could work towards acquisition.
