Discover Wolf Road - July 2021

Discover Wolf

July 28 - August 3, 2021 | COLONIE SPOTLIGHT 5

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Night and Day on Wolf Road Hotels play a large role in the history and future of the “Miracle Mile”

By DANIELLE SANZONE news@spotlightnews.com COLONIE - When the Hilltop Motel was built in 1960 on Wolf Road, lodging was $7 per night. The motel, no longer there today, would be near the site of the IHOP at 16 Wolf Rd., and the present-day Holiday Inn Express & Suites Albany Airport site.

It was in the 1950s and 1960s that Wolf Road would see some major changes and development.

The nearly three-mile stretch of Wolf Road was a two-lane roadway lined with farmers when Lou Leatso Jr. was growing up in Colonie.

“I spent the first 21 years of my life on Wolf Road,” said Leatso, whose family owned 180 acres of farmland on Wolf Road and a farmhouse that dated back to

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s The former Holiday Inn Turf on Wolf Road that most recently was the Red Lion Inn sits empty and overgrown.

Jim Franco / Spotlight News

6 COLONIE SPOTLIGHT | July 28 - August 3, 2021

Discover Wolf

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From page 1 ...

Night and Day

1805. His mother still lived on Wolf Road until about a dozen years ago.

“I saw a lot of changes on Wolf Road,” said Leatso, who now lives in Niskayuna on the Colonie border.

He remembered right after Colonie Center opened in the 1960s that area of Wolf Road was called “The Miracle Mile” and known for having about 100 restaurants all up and down the roadway. Some of those restaurants were located in hotels.

The Rowntowner Motor Inn, for example, was where Leatso started his 40-year culinary career at a premiere gourmet establishment inside the Inn called The Monticello Restaurant. It was one of the many places on Wolf Road that was popular for wedding receptions.

Leatso’s sister being one of them. And Leatso’s senior prom was held there as well.

Hotels along the Wolf Road corridor were certainly a place where many memories were made for those in the surrounding community. People worked at these hotels, had their wedding receptions at popular venues, celebrated

Left, the Country Club Restaurant and Motel before it was Cocca’s was one of the first Hotels in the Wolf Road area. Above, The new terminal at Albany Airport in 1959.

Photos provided by Rocky Cocca and Albany International Airport milestones at the hotel restaurants, and, of course, stayed at the hotels as well.

The Holiday Inn Turf on Wolf Road is one of the more iconic names that comes to mind when it comes to hotel history in the region. That hotel, at 205 Wolf Rd., was opened in 1975 as a Best Western Turf. This was the first hotel owned by the Turf Hotels which now has a portfolio that includes: Hampton Inn Albany-Western Ave/ University Area, Homewood Suites by Hilton Albany, Staybridge Suites Albany/Colonie Center, Hampton Inn & Suites Saratoga Springs and the Homewood Suites by Hilton Saratoga Springs.

“My father and his brother started the hotel business,” said John Hoffman about the origin of Turf Hotels which is now owned by Michael Hoffman with Brian Straughter as president.

John Hoffman, who said the name “Turf ” came from his family’s interest in horse racing and the turf track, remembers visiting the construction site of the original Turf hotel as it was being built.

“I vividly remember visiting the site and seeing the atrium when it was being built. There was no roof yet but the framework was there,” said Hoffman, who is now a silent partner in the family’s hotel business. He started

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A brochure and photo of the front of the Americana Inn opened in 1974.

It is now the Crown Plaza -Desmond.

Images provided by Desmond Hotels

working with the family business in 1985.

When a tower expansion was being constructed at the Turf Inn - which would eventually house the Love Nest and Playfield’s - John, a teenager at the time, was put to work to level out areas of the property. He had a cooler, lawn chair, and radio for the day’s work. Once he finished, the space was filled with concrete and he was told by his grandfather, Howard Sr., that he could put his initials there and they still are there today.

“Wolf Road has been a huge part of our community,”

said Tom Nolte, president of the Colonie Chamber of Commerce. He said there has been some conjecture about what will happen with the former Holiday Inn Turf property which was sold by the Hoffman family in 2006.

It’s not clear if the building will be demolished, if it will be redeveloped, or revitalized. The 312-room hotel was most recently the Red Lion Inn and before that was the Radisson.

Then, along with the corridor being a place for local residents for conferences and networking events, it had

also housed out of town guests for track season, the holidays, and more.

Nolte noted the central location and convenience with being close to the highways and the airport as reasons for the development and progress along Wolf Road and Albany Shaker Road.

Lou Leatso remembers when the airport was still a small operation. After all, the airport is the oldest municipal airport in the country. The “old terminal” at the airport was built in 1959. The portion of the terminal called Concourse A was built in “I spent the first 21 years 1979. And the new terminal of my life on Wolf Road,. was opened in 1998, said Doug Myers with the Albany My family owned 180 International Airport. acres of farmland on Wolf “It was a one strip airport Road and a farmhouse when I was a kid growing up,” said Leatso, who also that dated back to 1805.” remembered when the airport just serviced Mohawk Airlines.

— Lou Leatso Jr. Down the street from the airport, Leatso remembers when Crowne Plaza/The Desmond, then The Americana Inn, opened in 1974.

It was a joint venture with John K. Desmond Jr. and American Airlines which departed the hotel business nationwide a year later. It was in 1979 that the Scrimshaw was created for a dining experience. In 1982, the hotel finished an addition that brought it to 323 guest rooms and almost 30,000 square feet of banquet space.

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SEEKING

TENANTS

Wolf Road Shoppers Park is a 220,000 square foot community retail center located along Wolf Road and Metro Park Road. The center is a mix of retail, food and service owned by two of the areas prime developers, the estate of Salvatore Beltrone and Edward Swyer. The property was developed mostly in the 1970’s with a focus on open air open shopping, service and dining.

The past few years have seen an increase in leases, with new tenants including Goldfish Swim School, Professor Java’s Coffee Sanctuary, Chase Bank, Spotted Zebra, and I Love Kickboxing. Along with a large expansion of Trustco Bank’s Loan Center.

Wolf Road Shoppers Park, thru their agent Vanguard-Fine, LLC is seeking tenants for a proposed 90,000-square-foot office/retail building located adjacent to the existing shopping center. The new building would be on 10 acres of vacant land at the corner of Aviation Road and Metro Park Road.

518-862-0861

518-785-6611

https://www.vanguardfine.com/ 115473_4

8 COLONIE SPOTLIGHT | July 28 - August 3, 2021

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From page 3 ...

Night and Day

Motel), with prices ranging from $100 to upwards of $200 per night - a bit different than those $7 per night rates in the 1960s.

Hotels now located on Albany Shaker and Wolf roads include names like the Hilton Garden Inn, Marriott, and Cocca’s Inn and Suites (formerly the Country Club

To read more about this history, you can look up Wolf Road: A Century of Development from at Colonie library or view the town historian’s copy.

Left, the site of the first hotel on Wolf Road, now an IHOP stands on the property. Right and below, the Courtyard and the Staybridge are two of the newer hotels on the “Miracle Mile.”

There are more planned for the road.

Jim Franco/ Spotlight News

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