31,000 square foot building on Nanak Way is reimagined, Act 250 permit pending
By Curt Peterson
A new hotel is proposed for the site behind Hillside Inn on Nanak Way in Killington. The owners made a presentation to the Development Review Board (DRB) on Jan. 20, and have responded to a list of conditions set by the board.
According to a pending 250 permit application, Lanyard, A Shared Stay Inc. proposes “completion of an existing building shell on the site as a 72-room boutique hotel.”
The building was left unfinished by previous owners years ago.
The use will be a kind of hybrid arrangement “with some private rooms and some rooms shared among multiple guests.”
Guests and the public will be able to eat in a canteen-style dining facility. Developers indicated to the Act 250 Commission they plan to comply with necessary updates for parking, stormwater and utilities.
As recently as Oct. 6, 2021 the property, located at 101 Nanak Way, was listed with VT Commercial Real Estate of Burlington for $1.5 million. The three-story building comprises approximately 31,000 square feet and sits on 6.37 acres just east of Killington Road.
The owner of the property is Anil Sachdev of East Elmhurst and Brooklyn, New York, who also owns several other hotel properties in Vermont and New York.
His partner in the Lanyard property, co-founder and CEO Nina Kleaveland, lives in Manhattan, where the Lanyard company is headquartered, and Chatham, Massachusetts.
Sachdev’s Rutland hotels, Holiday Inn and Quality Inn, were in the news during the pandemic regarding thefts, vandalism and drug use allegedly involving guests paying with vouchers given them by the state as part of Covid response. He told the Rutland Town Select Board he had 138 vouchered individuals living in the two hotels at $89 per night and had become aware through local media of the magnitude of problems surrounding the hotels. He promised to remedy the situation by identifying and evicting the few individuals he felt were causing the problems, providing 24-hour security, and working with local organizations and the public to find solutions.
Kleaveland, 39, a graduate of University of Pennsylvania, owns her own hospitality consulting firm.
Since Jan.10 Lanyard’s owners have had two hearings before the DRB. On Jan. 20 the board provided a list of conditions to be met before approval would be granted. The Lanyard owners responded on Feb.3.
By combining the parking capacity of Hillside Inn and Lanyard, and resizing the designed parking spaces to satisfy (an expected revision in Killington’s parking regulations, the applicants were able to document 190 spaces for the two hotels.
Killington Fire and Rescue and the Killington Police Department have indicated they are satisfied with their “ability to serve” the hotel using Nanak Way.
Lanyard won’t have to build a pedestrian walkway or bike path unless and until they could connect with a master plan proposed walkway on Killington Road. Meanwhile, Lanyard is expecting an agreement from The Bus to provide pick-up and drop-off at the new site.
The applicants also agreed to purchase required Alpine Pipeline ERUs (Equivalent Residential Units) and Killington Road/Route 4 sewer ERUs. They said they expect to have a proposed Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) source permit by Feb.17 for drawing water from their private wells.
After an hour or so in a non-public deliberation session, the DRB members voted unanimously to accept and approve the amendments to their list of conditions as proposed by Lanyard Hotel owners. The permit now awaits approval by the town zoning administrator (a position that was vacated after Chuck Claffley left the job Feb. 18. Select Board member Jim Haff was appointed interim zoning administrator on Friday Feb. 25.)
Haff said the town is currently waiting on attorney Kevin Brown to review the verbiage of the DRB’s conditions and decision before sending the final plan urban development (PUD) and site plan documents to the new owners.
