Patrick Jones, who represents the owner proposing to build a hotel at 132-10 149th Ave., spoke at last week’s CB 10 meeting about a plan that has been criticized by board members. Anna Gustafson/The Forum Newsgroup
Community Board 10 members expressed serious reservations at their meeting last week about a proposal to build a hotel at 132-10 149th Ave., with a number of individuals citing concerns that the facility would be across the street from a homeless shelter.
If the plan is approved, the hotel that would likely be built at the spot would be a Quality Inn, according to Patrick Jones, who spoke on behalf of the property owner at the CB 10 meeting at the Knights of Columbus Hall in South Ozone Park last Thursday evening. The proposed 28,000 square foot hotel would include 101 rooms and four floors, Jone said.
While Jones stressed that the hotel would be situated near similar businesses, board members said they are worried about its placement because of the proximity to both the homeless shelter and nearby homes.
“There are residential homes a block away, a school a block away,” said CB 10 Chairwoman Betty Braton, who also emphasized that the planned structure would be “directly across from a homeless shelter with registered sex offenders.”
Braton, as well as other board members, said they were worried about the hotel’s patrons walking from the parking lot to the building’s entrance, particularly because of how close the building would be to the shelter. Jones said he could likely change the design of the hotel so the entranceway and parking lot would be closer together.
“A lot of our clients are people who have missed flight connections and wouldn’t be driving – they’d get dropped off at the entrance” Jones said in response to board members’ concerns about individuals walking from the parking lot to the front of the building.
Board members also asked if union workers would be used during the facility’s construction.
“A hotel of this size is generally built without union labor,” Jones said. “…But I imagine there might be a mix of union and non-union.”
Land Use Committee Chairman John Calcagnile said board members could not approve the hotel proposal at last week’s meeting without seeing a redesign for the facility that took into consideration their concerns, including a reconfiguration of the parking lot and entrance. Members voted to wait to decide whether or not to say yea or nay to the hotel until the applicant comes forward with a redesigned proposal, though Calcagnile stressed that a partially new plan does not guarantee support from CB 10.
By Anna Gustafson
