New east side townhome development

And nope, I'm not kiddling, but stay with me for a minute because this one is serving a niche market.  Six new senior living (60+) townhomes are being built at 124 Jefferson Street, across from the intersection with East Fenlon. 

As the picture below shows, quite a bit of work has already been completed on the project, and the Albany developer, Charles Touhey, will soon be placing a sign out front showing floor plans and other pertinent information. 

 

Mr. Touhey was decent enough to return my phone call and we had a real nice conversation about the project, of which he sure sounded very enthusiastic about.  Touhey is the developer who constructed the nearby Village at Saratoga, and he has a good reputation around Albany for constructing several affordable housing projects.   As a little bit of trivia, Touhey's father Carl ran against longtime Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd for the office in 1973.  Unlike Corning's other mayoral challengers, who usually got trounced in landslides, the elder Touhey, who was well financed and ran as a Republican, came within 3,200 votes of knocking off the legendary politician.

The property was recently sold to one of Touhey's holding companies by Jelenik Construction, although I don't know whether Jelenik still has an interest in the project.   I'll be delicate here and simply say that Jefferson Street has its pluses and minuses, and what's really neat about this location is that it is situated just about a five minute walk from both the harness and thoroughbred tracks.  The project has six units, with two bedrooms each (with the possibility of a third, according to Touhey), full basements, and one car garages. The sale price will be $329,000, which is notably lower than most other new condo developments in town, with the exception of the nearby Condominiums at 11 Cottage Street.   Speaking of that project, which I previously wrote about here,  it appears that all six of the Cottage Street units have sold.  The for sale signs have been down since summer, and the sale web site is now defunct.  No matter what the economy, Saratoga always has stuff happening on the real estate front. 

Comments

[spiritoflife]

And don't forget that Carl's father owned Saratoga Vichy and his wife, Alice Green, ran for NYS Lieutenant Governor with Al "Grandpa" Lewis.

[Dan]

OH hey great insight! I remember when they ran but I didn't know those other items. Hate to show my ignorance of Saratoga history, but I've only lived here for four and a half years - what was Saratoga Vichy?

[spiritoflife]

Dan

I am also a 'carpetbagger'....I believe the best answer(s) would come from a native Saratogian. A bottle of Vichy and Quevic water was a staple on many Saratoga dinner tables.....until the Quevic plant, on Excelsior Springs Ave. blew up in the mid 1960's. The business was briefly brought back, only to fizzle out again. (Bad pun.) I believe that Stewarts carries some form of the water now.

Google it and you will catch the history - tho, it looks like the name might be up for grabs:
http://www.trademarkia.com/quevic-73072514.html

How 'bout a FiS meetup where everyone could tip back a Vichy/Quevic or something alittle stronger ?

[Dan]

So much interesting history in this town - thanks for sharing all of that. Yea maybe I should have some sort of get-together. I am always wondering what to do with this blog - selling advertising, selling the blog to someone that will keep it going, handing it off to someone, ending it etc. I appreciate insightful comments like yours and it keeps me going. Thanks and take care.

[Franklin SquareD]

You ought to call SAS builders and find out what they've started to build on the Ellsworth Ice Cream Lot on Division Street. They are digging in the ground, doing infrastructure work, beating out Bonacio's rebuild of Price Chopper just down the road. I'd be interested on what you find out and the post you'd make out of it.

Thanks

[Dan]

Hey thanks for that heads up. I am on the Universal Preservation Hall board with SAS owner Alec Stephens and will likely see him tonight at the Max Weinberg concert at UPH, so maybe I'll ask him what's going on. Thanks and take care.