Hotel project on Pearl St. could start next month
Construction is expected to start in August to turn a vacant Pearl Street building into a boutique hotel.
Architect Scott Dutton said Friday that the proposal for 41 Pearl St. has secured the needed approvals from the city Planning Board and Historic Landmarks Preservation Commission and that contractors working for developer Charles Blaichman soon will seek a building permit to create the 14-room hotel.
“The contractor has filed for a clean-out permit to begin nonstructural removals and preparing the site,” Dutton said in an email. “We anticipate filing for a full building permit in midAugust and commencing construction immediately upon receipt.”
Dutton said the construction is expected to be take about nine months.
“The majority of the work will be interior restoration and modifications to adapt spaces for the hotel use,” the architect said. “The only exterior modification to the building is a small mansard roof addition on the northeast side of the building .... ”
The Pearl Street building was constructed in the 1680s as a single-family residence and once was home to Mary Isabella Forsyth, a member of a prominent Kingston family.
The Pearl Street hotel will serve as an extension of a nine-room boutique hotel Blaichman is developing a few blocks away, at 301 Wall St. Construction has begun at that location and also is expected to be done within about nine months, Dutton said.
The Wall Street building, at the corner of John Street, most recently housed the Tonner Doll Co., which has moved to the town of Ulster.
Blaichman is part of an investment group that recently bought three additional buildings in Uptown Kingston: 273 Wall St., a 12,000-square-foot building where a Citizens Bank branch is located; 275 Fair St., known as the Kingston Opera House; and 10 Crown St., formerly home to a restaurant called The Tappen.
The Citizens Bank branch will remain a first-floor tenant at 273 Wall St., which is between Main and John streets. Nan Potter, of Potter Realty Properties, the investors’ real estate representative, said previously that the 1,941-squarefoot building at 10 Crown St., directly behind the bank, is being renovated but does not yet have a tenant.
There are no plans for major changes at the Kingston Opera House building, Potter has said.
Blaichman also owns the building at 38 Main St. in Uptown Kingston, the former Bank of America building at Broadway and Henry Street in Midtown, and a property on Abeel Street in the city’s Rondout district where he once planned to build a hotel called The Noah, which never materialized.