By Paul Post
Queensbury Hotel is already getting calls for large, sell-out conferences in 2024 and 2025, two months before the highly anticipated mid-June opening of its new $3.8 million grand ballroom.
The 5,200-square-foot addition with state-of-the-art kitchen facilities, located to the right of the building’s rear entrance, could be a major game-changer for downtown Glens Falls by hosting multi-day events for hundreds of people who would likely visit restaurants and retail shops throughout the city.
“This hotel can be an incubator for other businesses,” general manager Tyler Herrick said. “That’s always been part of our mission with doing this project. When we have 300 to 400 guests that’s 300 to 400 people that are looking for stuff to do and walking around. That obviously helps everybody.
“I would hope some of our midweek conventions bring people who want to go to WorkSmart (Coworking & Meeting Space) because they want to get out of their hotel room or relax at places like Spot Coffee. Like they say, a rising tide lifts all ships. Right now I think Glens Falls is on a good wave.”
The ballroom is just one of several entrepreneurial ventures Herrick and Zack Moore, both 41, are pursuing as co-owners of Spruce Hospitality Group, which manages Queensbury Hotel and Fairfield Inn & Suites at Northway Exit 18 in Queensbury. The Fairfield opened in September 2019, affording guests easy access to Saratoga Springs, Lake George and Glens Falls.
Both lodging establishments are owned by Moore’s father, Ed, who also owns the Sawyer Building directly across from Cool Insuring Arena, along with French Mountain Commons and Lake George Outlet Center on the Million Dollar Half-Mile (Route 9) in Queensbury.
“We love this community, we’re thankful to live and do business here,” Zack Moore said.
In January 2021, he and Herrick also signed a three-year agreement to manage food and beverage, special events and catering for Ticonderoga Golf Course’s new clubhouse that opened last spring, replacing a structure that burned four years ago. The site features Seymour’s Restaurant, a year-round fine dining establishment, and the Tap Room, a bar with outdoor seating on the lower level.
“We’re all one big family, but Ticonderoga Golf Course is really our first project at a facility not owned by Ed,” Herrick said. “It’s our first time stepping out and doing something on a truly third-party management agreement.”
Plans call for hosting both on- and off-site special events at places such as Fort Ticonderoga’s new pavilion, in Hague and perhaps even Silver Bay Association.
“We’re always fielding calls, having meetings with people, constantly looking at things,” Herrick said.
Previously, he and Zack Moore consulted with Glens Falls businesswoman Elizabeth Miller to help get the newly-renovated Park Theater and Doc’s Restaurant open in Glens Falls. “Feasibility studies and market research things lead to other projects,” Herrick said.
He said they’ve even been contacted about potential projects in Hudson, whose historic business district has a variety of trendy shops and antique stores.
“We’re always kicking the tires,” Moore said.
Herrick, originally from suburban Boston, formed Spruce Hospitality with Moore in 2016 following 13 years at The Sagamore Resort where he became assistant general manager after starting out as front desk clerk.
They’ve been intimately involved with all aspects of the Queensbury Hotel’s renovations, which began shortly after Ed Moore’s purchase of the 125-room landmark in 2016. The hotel was previously owned by Maryland-based Real Hospitality Group.
The Moores and Herrick immediately set about restoring the Queensbury, which first opened in 1926, to its former grandeur. “The next thing was reconnecting the building back to the community. Sixty years of non-local management and ownership really changed what this building was to its residents,” Herrick said.
Groups such as Kiwanis, Rotary and Lions meet there regularly and the hotel partners with entities such as the Chapman Museum, Crandall Public Library and Prospect Child & Family Center on special events, he said.
Queensbury Hotel is now entirely booked almost every weekend of the year, Herrick said. It’s hoped the new ballroom’s much bigger space will boost midweek business by attracting groups and associations that hold events such as trade shows or continuing education classes. The New York State Association of Police Chiefs is slated to use the new venue in late July with nearly 400 people on hand. All hotel rooms are sold out with overflow going to Fairfield Inn & Suites.
Numerous weddings are also scheduled from August well into fall.
The new ballroom more than doubles the number of people able to attend plated dinners in one room, from 200 to nearly 450 guests. The addition also has a large pre-assembly hallway area where people can gather for cocktail parties before entering the dining area.
For events such as trade shows, where dinner tables aren’t needed, the ballroom can handle from 650 to 700 people.
The new space is the most ambitious project Queensbury Hotel’s owner and managers have handled to date. But it’s not the last. Plans call for “crowning the Queen” with a rooftop bar, giving guests a birds-eye view of the cityscape set against a backdrop of picturesque Adirondack scenery.
“COVID delayed everything, but it will happen,” Herrick said. “It’s going to be a great feature. When you go up there and watch the sun set over West Mountain, it’s beautiful. Zack and I are both 41 and have young families. We aren’t going anywhere soon. It’s something we both definitely want to get done.”