With $29 million in cash set aside in the 2022 state budget for a new “state of the art, energy efficient headquarters” for the agency, APA Public Information Officer Keith McKeever said the APA is looking at leasing and renovating the village-owned building at 1-3 Main St. at the intersection of Main Street, Lake Street and Kiwassa Road, and by the Saranac River.

“The downtown location would be a unique opportunity to partner with local government, support a Downtown Revitalization Initiative community, increase accessibility to the public and restore an existing historic building,” McKeever wrote in an email to the News.

Village Mayor Jimmy Williams said the APA and village have been in discussions about this potential lease since early last summer. He said the village is “excited” for a potential “mutually beneficial outcome.”

The Saranac Lake Police Department is currently housed in that building, but the village is considering moving it to a proposed $27 million emergency services building on Petrova Avenue, combining the department with the village fire and rescue squads.

“They are completely unrelated,” Williams said on April 4.

“These are two completely independent things,” Trustee Rich Shapiro said on April 6. “The two paths didn’t cross until very recently.”

After a March 28 meeting on the proposed emergency services building, village resident Mary Thill told Shapiro she’d been hearing talk from people at the APA about the potential move and asked him about it.

“You know as much as I do,” Shapiro said at the time.

The Adirondack Explorer reported that its journalists “have inquired about the new headquarters repeatedly at monthly APA board meetings throughout the past year,” to no answers.

There are still a lot of details about the potential lease that are yet to be determined, such as if the APA would lease the entire building or part of it, what the rent would be set at, and if the building’s current renters would need to move.

McKeever said the agency is conducting an ongoing feasibility study through the Bergmann engineering firm to determine if the site will meet their needs. McKeever said they hope to finish this study in the next few weeks. He said the APA has been moving through the different phases of study for months, but did not say if the APA has looked at other locations for its headquarters.

“That building needs millions of dollars’ worth of work,” Williams said.

In April 2022, the APA received $29 million through the state budget for a new headquarters.

At the time, McKeever told the News the APA’s current building is poorly designed and in bad condition; he didn’t think it wouldn’t be cost-effective to renovate it for the agency’s needs. He said at the time that the agency was exploring its options for whether to build a new building or renovate an existing one.

The APA has met in a small, 1950s-era log cabin for the last 50 years on a shared campus with New York State Police and the DEC in Ray Brook.

McKeever said the APA currently has a 44-person staff, but they are trying to bring that up to 55.

He said the APA is currently hiring for environmental program specialists and positions in its regulatory programs and planning divisions.

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The building

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Shapiro said in March that if someone offered the village a dollar for the building, he’d want to take the deal.

The building costs a lot for them to maintain, he said, and even with renting out the first and second floors to Franklin County, he said they are operating the building at a deficit. Williams said they make $4,000 annually on it, which Shapiro said with time managing the building and maintaining the parking lot, that still amounts to a loss in his mind.

Williams also said that $4,000 profit is before the village pays taxes on the property. Since it is not occupied by the government body, it pays taxes on it. The 2.3 acre property is assessed at $577,100 and had full market value of $687,024 as of 2022, according to the Franklin County tax map.

At a March 28 village meeting on its proposed emergency services building, which would move the SLPD from its offices in the Power and Light building to the former Pius X high school building, Harrietstown Housing Authority Board Chairperson Jim Connolly said he’s been wanting the HHA to use the Power and Light building for housing for years. Connolly is also a retired planning director of the APA. He left the APA in 2013.

HHA Executive Director Sarah Clarkin said this was Connolly’s personal desire, but that the HHA never truly pursued using that building. She said Connolly resigned from the HHA board on April 3 to focus on other projects.

At the meeting, Connolly was visibly angry as he questioned the village’s commitment to housing and said the HHA has an “almost nonexistent” track record of working with the village.

The three-story building, which used to house the Paul Smith’s Power and Light Company, was built by the son of the legendary Adirondack guide and hotelier Paul Smith in 1927.

The name of that company is still engraved on the side of the building. The village bought the property in 1986.

Shaprio said Franklin County’s lease for its offices there goes through June 2024. The county would have to move its offices if this lease with the APA goes through.

Shapiro said the county has not been notified of this yet, since it still is in such early phases.

A dam connected to the foundation of the building is operated by the village.

Shapiro and Williams said that if the village sold the building, this could be an issue, but with a lease, that’s not a problem.