The former Hoffman’s Playland on New Loudon Road is empty on Friday, May 20, 2022 in Colonie, N. Y.
The former Hoffman’s Playland on New Loudon Road is empty on Friday, May 20, 2022 in Colonie, N. Y.
The former Hoffman’s Playland on New Loudon Road is empty on Friday, May 20, 2022 in Colonie, N. Y.
COLONY – Eight years after the closure of the beloved Hoffman’s Playland, it’s still deserted and overgrown, but it won’t be forever.
A new commercial and senior housing complex is being prepared to upgrade the old amusement park after gaining approval from the city’s concept plan last year. , a four-story independent senior building with 85 apartments and a three-story senior building with 92 beds.
“We think there’s a lot of dominance to this type of development,” Nick Costa, an assignment developer at Advance Engineering and Surveying PLLC, said at an earlier City Council meeting. “We think seniors would like services like this, as it would be close to Newton Plaza, near Bellinis, so that other seniors would just get stuck in an institutional setting. “
After approving the concept plan, city departments met in August to give developers more explicit feedback and questions about their plans, adding quantification of the impact on wetlands behind assets and main points about expected lighting levels across the site. Once the developers have responded to the city’s ratings, there will be a review time.
“We’re looking to be very comprehensive,” said Sean Maguire, director of the city’s economic development and planning department. “This is an economic development district, so we’re in this from a broader perspective for its mix of uses. They are a little more complicated, so they take a little longer.
Hoffman’s Playland closed permanently in 2014 after more than 60 years of activity. The owners retired and sold the park. The news was disappointing to many: Hoffman’s Playland has been a beloved component of Colony’s history for decades. The attractions were moved to Huck Finn’s warehouse in Albany in 2015.
Maguire said it was too early to set a timeline for when the task could take off. Costa said in an email that they were actively working on a final plan to present to the city.
The assignment faced a number of setbacks before receiving the green light from the city, in addition to gaining city approval to rezon the site. In approving the rezoning of the site in a planned growth district, the developer required dedicating $500,000 for “public benefits”: namely, innovations in the sidewalks along Loudon Road and Spring Street. The city had also asked the developer to reduce the original allocation proposal.