The Stamford-based real estate developer and hotel operator RMS Companies has made a pre-application presentation to the Port Chester Industrial Development Agency (IDA) regarding its interest in developing a boutique hotel at the site of the former United Hospital.
The mixed-use development is to include 775 rental apartments, 90 independent living apartments and 110 assisted living and memory care units, about 19,000 square feet of retail space, and green space. The overall redevelopment plan by Boston Post Road Owner LLC for the former hospital site also includes a 120-room hotel.
Frank Ferrara, chairman of the IDA, said that RMS has the framework of an agreement with the United Hospital site developer to handle the hotel for the project but it has not been finalized. Ferrara said that IDA staff and RMS held a number of meetings beginning in the summer to explore the hotel situation and possible IDA financial incentives.
Randy Salvatore, who is the president and CEO of RMS Companies, told the IDA members that he was appearing before them to background the IDA on the company and explain why they think the site is one at which they can properly execute a project.
“We’re a vertically integrated real estate development and ownership company,” Salvatore said. “We do our own construction management; we do our own excavating and site work for all of our projects. We have a hospitality division, which has five hotels … in Connecticut, and then we have a large multifamily portfolio that we own and operate and continue to develop throughout Connecticut and into Westchester.”
The RMS hotels are: Hotel Zero Degrees in Danbury; The Blake Hotel in New Haven; The Goodwin in Hartford; The Lloyd in Stamford; and The Watershed in Norwalk.
Salvatore said that the company started in 1996 when they put up a single-family modular home in Stamford and sold it.
Salvatore said that RMS has created a preliminary plan for a boutique hotel at the Untied Hospital redevelopment site that has five floors with 24 rooms on each floor. He said they needed to do that as part of their due diligence to help determine whether they could do everything they want.
“The answer was yes,” Salvatore said.”We haven’t done a complete design for it but we know we can do a successful thing. What excites us is the lack of a hotel in the area. We think it’s so needed around here, a quality hotel. We want to be in markets where there is positive momentum and clearly we feel that and see that in Port Chester. Being a part of this larger development we think is really great.”
Salvatore said that hotels bring energy to developments because of all of the activity they have. He said that the hotel can offer entertainment and dining options for residents of a development. He said that these days restaurants in hotels become destinations for a community.
“Having all the apartments around here and the plans that they’re talking about doing, the great amenity package, the green space and so on, this can be really a special place that people want to go and that’s really the driver for it,” Salvatore said. “This will become a destination. If this was a freestanding building just sitting on Post Road it’s not the same thing.”
The IDA has already approved financial incentives for Boston Post Road Owner LLC including a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) and up to $1,935,086 in sales tax exemption and up to $354,008 in mortgage recording tax exemption.
Salvatore expressed a concern about property taxes on a new hotel and noted that an analysis indicated additional incentives from the IDA in the form of a 20-year PILOT instead of a 12-year PILOT or a lowered property assessment would be needed.
RMS was expected to submit an application for financial incentives from the IDA in January.
“We’re showing all the numbers, we’re telling you we have a track record, we can execute in this market and we’re presenting it the way we think it is,” Salvatore said.
