Staff Writer

ONEONTA —Construction on a Hampton Inn hotel in the city's Sixth Ward is planned to begin in June, developers said Tuesday.

The hotel, which will be located on the corner of River Street and the River Street Service Road, is planned to open in spring 2004, according to David Lubin, a Horseheads-based developer.

A spokesman for Hampton Inn, a member of the Hilton family of hotels, said the project was approved by the company in June 2002. Hampton Inn has more than 1,000 locations throughout the Americas, according to the company's website.

Lubin said the four-story building, which will be located on a couple of acres owned by Wayne Treffeisen, will be a mid-priced, limited-service hotel with 71 rooms, an exercise area and an indoor pool. The developers have space for future construction of a restaurant next door.

"Hopefully we will eventually get a national brand to be able to offer some more services to the hotel and, of course, the general public," he said.

Lubin said he and his partners in the project —Treffeisen and Tom Milnes of the Milnes Companies of Tunkhannock, Pa., chose the location because of visibility and good access because of its proximity to Interstate 88.

"We hope to certainly work with the tourist trade but we're hoping that ... interstate travelers traveling up and down 88 will see the hotel and it will give them good reason to stop in Oneonta," he said.

Construction of the hotel is estimated to cost several million dollars, Lubin said.

City Code Enforcement Officer Peter Friedman said the developers are in the process of obtaining a building permit for the hotel.

No further approvals are needed, as plans submitted to the city are appropriate to the area, city officials said.

In 2000, the city Common Council approved a zoning change that allows hotels and restaurants to be built in the western part of the Sixth Ward.

"We need more hotel rooms here, it's a plus for the area," Mayor Kim Muller said about the Hampton Inn project on Tuesday. "We are growing and with the proposed plans in the city and the area, it's going to turn out that we need that kind of development."

Muller said while the extremes of River Street were designed for commercial development, "the Sixth Ward, I hope, will remain predominantly residential. It's a very nice area of the city."

Sixth Ward resident Leland D. Higgins, a retired police officer who lives on Fonda Avenue, said he thought the project would help revamp the area's image as a lower-class neighborhood.

"Overall I think it would be really beneficial and I would be proud to see that," Higgins, 65, said. "The traffic is definitely going to be increased. You take 5 o'clock —being a former police officer, you notice the traffic is really getting bad now even without that structure, but that's the way things are."

Muller said she anticipated that the majority of traffic related to the hotel would use the service road. The council has already approved reconstruction of River Street, unrelated to this project, Muller said, and the street is larger than most streets and designed to handle more traffic.

Some questioned whether the area could support another hotel outside of the tourist season.

Rob Robinson, president and CEO of the Otsego County Chamber, said the market could absorb another hotel in the summer, "but what happens in the wintertime when everybody's starving?"

Heidi Yorke, assistant general manager at the Holiday Inn on state Route 23, said the winter months might not support another hotel.

"We always encourage anybody that wants to jump on board in the hospitality industry," Yorke said. "However, wintertime is always a struggle."

Yorke said the Holiday Inn, which is usually 90 to 95 percent full in the summer, drops to 30 percent full during the winter months.

Kiran Patel, owner of the Budget Inn in Oneonta, said smaller properties might lose business if Hampton Inn moves in.

The Budget Inn, he said, had already lost some business when the Clarion Hotel opened on Main Street in 2001.

"Maybe with the Hampton Inn coming, we are dead," he said.

But Muller said the area has been getting more visitors and tourists in the off-season, especially as the National Soccer Hall of Fame holds more activities and the city moves toward developing the Foothills Performing Arts Center.

"We're going to see more and more need for hotel rooms in the shoulder months," she said.

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Melissa Scram can be reached at mscram@thedailystar.com or (607) 441-7213.