Board approves Garden Park Apartments

TOWN OF MANLIUS – Plans for the Garden Park Apartments, a controversial 86-apartment complex proposed for Highbridge Street in the town of Manlius, have been approved by the Manlius Town Board and will now go to the town planning board for site plan review.
On Wednesday, the board voted six to one, with Councilor Sara Bollinger opposed, to approve the Planned Unit Development and voted by the same margin that the development would not have a significant impact on the surrounding community.
If site plans are approved by the planning board, the four-story apartment building will be neighbor to the Brookside Alzheimer’s Care facility on Highbridge Street. The 8.8-acre parcel is on the site of a former quarry and will be nestled at the base of a steep embankment.
In a public hearing that stretched over two town board meetings last month, residents of the area expressed their concerns about traffic and the visual impact of a four-story building at that location. The site is just north of a steep curve on Highbridge Street, and several residents expressed that adding 86 apartments at that location would make Highbridge more dangerous for both motorists and pedestrians.
The Garden Park Apartments are the second Planned Unit Development proposed in Manlius since the town board adopted a PUD code earlier this year. PUDs are designed to give developers and municipal planners additional flexibility for projects that don’t fit neatly into the town’s existing zoning codes.
Because the parcel is currently zoned Commercial-A, several board members and town attorney Tim Frateschi have frequently pointed out that the board would have little recourse if a strip mall or other more intensive commercial use had been proposed for the site.
“We have to keep in mind that this is a C-A property already,” Frateschi said last Wednesday.
The proposal calls for a four-story apartment complex featuring 78 one- and two-story apartments and eight penthouse condominiums. Other portions of the plan call for a spa hair salon for Garden Park tenants and residents of the Brookdale Alzheimer’s Care facility next door, a convenience item store, a wellness center and a media room. Four of the apartments would be reserved for short-term rentals at reduced rates for families of the residents of the Alzheimer’s facility next door.
The project features 156 parking spaces, half of which would be located under the building.
The target market for the complex will be seniors and empty nesters looking to downsize from single-family homes.