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Here’s an aerial view of the vacant property on Paramus Road where the Baker Group wants to build a much debated multi-family housing complex.
This property has been the subject of past controversy with regard to zoning.
A self-storage facility was proposed and rejected, and Ridgewood resident Ned Cancellmo’s plan to move Brogan Cadillac to the location was met by blank stares and frowns from the previous Village Council. State DOT officials also talked about moving a salt shed to the property; this too was deemed as being “not appropriate.”
Now it is rumored that, in all likelihood, Zoning Board of Adjustment members will reject the Baker Group’s multi-family housing proposal.
So what do Village officials have in mind for this property? Certainly, they don’t expect anyone would build luxury housing there, do they? What then?
Rumors have circulated for several years now about a group of local investors wanting to build a hotel in Ridgewood. Now that the Schedler property is targeted for preservation as open space, could this be only remaining vacant site where construction of a hotel could be possible?
Please read this condensed biography of Albert J. Pucciarelli, Vice Chairman of Ridgewood’s Planning Board, and let The Fly know what you think about the possibility of a hotel being in Ridgewood’s future.
Albert J. Pucciarelli
Partner
McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney, and Carpenter, LLP Attorneys
Ridgewood, NJ
Chair of the Hotels and Resorts Practice Group
ALBERT J. PUCCIARELLI is admitted to practice law in both New York and New Jersey. His practice is concentrated in the areas of hotel and resort development and hotel operations, aviation law, general corporate law and real estate law. In 1999, he co-founded the law firm of Hooker Pucciarelli & Tibbs, L.L.P. in which he was a partner until joining McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP in 2005 as Chair of the firm’s Hotels and Resorts Practice Group. From 1988 through 1998, he was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Inter-Continental Hotels & Resorts with over 200 hotels in 70 countries. He served on the Board of Directors of Inter-Continental, was chair of the company’s Life Safety and Security Committee and a member of the Development Committee and the Pension and Benefits Committee. Prior to joining Inter-Continental, Mr. Pucciarelli served as Vice President and Counsel to Grand Metropolitan (U.S.) and its publicly owned (NYSE) predecessor, Liggett Group, Inc. He has served as Chair of the Hotels, Restaurants and Tourism Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (2001-2004) and as Chair of the Aeronautics Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (1998-2001). He has served as a member of the Hospitality Law Council of the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel & Restaurant Management, University of Houston (2003-2004), and is a member of the Hotel Industry Liaison Committee of the ABA Committee on Hotels, Resorts and Tourism. He has taught International Business Law as an adjunct professor at the Fordham University Graduate School of Business, and was member of that school’s Advisory Board (1996-2004).
Mr. Pucciarelli is fluent in Russian. He is an instrument-rated commercial pilot, an FAA certified advanced ground instructor and an aircraft owner. He serves his local community as Vice Chairman of the Ridgewood, New Jersey, Planning Board and is a Director of the Board of the Ridgewood Public Library Foundation. Until 1998, he was Vice Chairman of the Ridgewood, New Jersey, Zoning Board of Adjustment on which he served for ten years.
Mr. Pucciarelli’s clients include the owners and developers of Marriott, Courtyard, Ritz-Carlton, Fairmont, Mandarin Oriental, Hyatt, St. Regis and Westin mixed-use hotel and resort projects, hotel management companies and owners, several closely held companies in a variety of businesses, including hotels and restaurants, the second largest dealer of Cessna aircraft in the U.S. and purchasers and sellers of general aviation aircraft.
Mr. Pucciarelli is nationally recognized for his expertise in hotel management agreements and hotel and resort development. He has recently published “Be Smart When You Negotiate” that appeared in the June 2008 edition of Lodging Hospitality, “Hotel Owner’s Budget Approval Rights in Hotel Management Agreements” in the October 2007 edition of Hospitality Lawyer Newsletter, “Smoothing the Legal Path to Development” that appeared in the April 2007 edition of Lodging Hospitality, a two-part article, “Structure of Mixed-Use Hotel Residential Resort Projects” for HospitalityLawyer.com (March, 2006), “Selling and Buying an Existing Hotel – Structure of an Asset Transaction” for Hospitality E-Newsletter (July, 2006) that he co-authored with Eunice Moon, “Recording Hotel Management Agreements – Why?” that he authored for the 16th Annual Real Property Symposium of the Real Property, Probate and Trusts Law Section of the American Bar Association in April, 2005, and “Hotel Mixed-Use Development Projects” that he co-authored for the 2004 Hospitality Law Conference sponsored by the University of Houston School of Law in February 2004. He participated in two panel discussions at the 2006 Phoenix Lodging Conference on hotel and resort development and led a panel discussion at the 2007 Hospitality Law Conference in Houston on the subject of hotel general counsel’s selection and utilization of outside counsel and will speak at that conference in 2009 on the subject of Incentive Fees in Hotel Management Agreements.