By Ann Donnelly

When people hear the word hospice, they often picture a brick-and-mortar facility. But for High Peaks Hospice, which serves a sprawling six-county region across upstate New York, hospice is not a place; it is a comprehensive service brought directly to the patient.

“We are not a place,” executive director Nicholas George said. “Wherever people are calling home, we go to that home, whether they’re in their actual home, in a nursing home, in assisted living, we go in to take care of them where they are.”

Operating since 1986, High Peaks Hospice has what is likely the second-largest geographic coverage of any hospice in the state. Its territory spans Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, St. Lawrence, Washington and Warren counties. With a staff of nearly 50 employees, the organization cares for individuals who have received a medical prognosis of six months or less to live because of a terminal illness. Age and income are not limiting factors; the hospice has cared for patients ranging from infants to a 106-year-old, and Medicare and most commercial insurance cover the service.

By Paul Post

Traffic at Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport is expected to increase from 23,652 to more than 33,700 flights per year over the next 20 years, much of it business and tourism travel that contributes to the local economy.

An airport master plan update, scheduled for completion next year, seeks to identify current and future needs to maintain the site as a valuable regional asset.

Several dozen residents and stakeholders got their first look at the study during a recent public meeting at SUNY Adirondack.

“There’s a perception out there that these airports are only for a certain sector, such as people with small planes or people with a lot of money,” said Steve Bourque, of Binghamton-based McFarland Johnson, an engineering firm specializing in aviation planning. “It’s more than that. There’s jobs at the airport. It’s not only used by corporate executives. It brings in hundreds and hundreds of tourists every year, which brings thousands of dollars to the local economy.”

“It’s also used for search and rescue and law enforcement activity,” he said.

By Paul Post

Garvey Kia is scheduled to move into its new state-of-the-art dealership on Wednesday, May 20 followed by a grand opening celebration with area dignitaries in June.

The 25,000-square-foot, two-story building is adjacent to the firm’s former site at 483 Quaker Road, which continues as a Volkswagen dealership with future remodeling plans.

Kia generates approximately 65 percent of the company’s revenue.

“It was really a business need,” owner and President J.P. Garvey said. “We were selling so many cars next door that we had to expand. It’s the biggest, best and most technologically modern dealership in the North Country. Kia had a really big role in the design process, but a lot of the details were up to us. Every day there were a hundred decisions that had to be made.”

Garvey is the only Kia dealership between Albany and Plattsburgh, and its market includes most of central Vermont, too.

The new building has a variety of unique features, from environmentally sustainable elements and a spacious customer lounge to a top-of-the-line network computer system and employee amenities such as a shower, secure locker room and full-service break room and kitchen area.

By Paul Post

From a new planning and zoning department to downtown parking initiatives, Glens Falls is pursuing steps large and small to attract business and promote economic development.

Mayor Diana Palmer outlined those steps during a recent wide-ranging speech covering her first 100 days in office at Heritage Hall in Harding Mazzotti Arena.

“Being mayor of a small city is about solving problems,” she said. “At any given time, there will be new problems that need careful thought and solutions. The beginning of my administration was no exception. In January, we confronted a number of ongoing problems, and I am proud of the progress my administration has made on all of them.”

One of the most significant items she discussed was a proposed transfer of operations and sale of the city’s Fire Road ice rink, near the YMCA, to the Adirondack Youth Hockey Association. The facility was temporarily closed last year because glycol leaked from its cooling system.

The situation was managed, but the city is still seeking a long-term solution.

Editor’s Note: This article was published May 14. Scratch Kitchen announced its new 21 Ridge St. location would open May 18.

By Carol Ann Conover

After two years building a loyal following out of a compact cafe on Warren Street, Scratch Kitchen owner and executive chef Denver Semon is trading her 12-seat dining room for a 70-seat space at 21 Ridge St., putting her squarely in the middle of what she calls a growing restaurant hub in downtown Glens Falls.

The move, approved by the Glens Falls Planning Board earlier this year, marks a significant step for a chef who has spent more than two decades at the stoves of some of the region’s most recognized kitchens, including The Sagamore, the Aviator Restaurant in Queensbury and Flight Wine Bar & Restaurant in Glens Falls, before striking out on her own in the spring of 2024.

“I’ve wanted to open my own place for a long time, but it, you know, financially it wasn’t feasible or, you know, many reasons,” Semon said. “It’s scary to get into the restaurant business. It’s a lot, a lot of overhead and not a lot of rewards sometimes. But I’m just like, if I’m gonna work that hard, I think I’m going to do it for myself.”

The Warren Street location, while beloved, imposed hard limits. With seating for roughly a dozen and a kitchen built for one, Semon couldn’t accommodate the volume her growing customer base demanded.

“I have such a small kitchen. It was really only, only me. So it made it difficult. We couldn’t do the business that we wanted to do,” she said. “So, I knew after two years we were going to have to find something larger, which is an awesome, awesome problem.”

The new Ridge Street location had served as a restaurant for most of its history. Previous tenants include Fiddleheads, Black Watch and most recently Birch Bark Eatery, the vegan restaurant whose owner relocated to Albany, before the space was used as an event venue for about two years. The existing hood and infrastructure meant Semon’s build-out focused on outfitting the kitchen with new commercial equipment and refreshing the dining room and bathrooms, rather than undertaking structural work.