Feb. 27–A group of four Buffalo investors are planning to build a new hotel adjacent to the Batavia Downs racetrack and casino, after the board of Western Regional Off-Track Betting approved the sale Thursday of about 35,000 square feet of land for the project.
Businessmen Anthony J. Baynes, founder and owner of Extra Mile Transportation LLC, and Kent Frey, president of Frey Electric Construction Co., are teaming up with attorney David McNamara of Phillips Lytle LP, and Roswell Park Cancer Institute neurologist Dr. Laszlo L. Mechtler to build an 80-room hotel that will be directly connected to the gaming facility, providing an opportunity to make Batavia Downs more of a destination. Their venture, AKD Hospitality LLC, will pay $605,000 for the property, which is the value set through an independent appraisal that Batavia Downs conducted.
The $7 million hotel will have a small breakfast area, but otherwise there will be no food or beverage service and no banquet facilities. Rather, any such needs would be met by the three restaurants at Batavia Downs, which can also accommodate banquets for up to 1,000 people, said Michael Kane, CEO of Western Region OTB.
Track officials hope the hotel will help Batavia Downs to be more competitive with rival gaming and racing operations, including the three Seneca Gaming Corp. facilities in Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Salamanca. Batavia Downs now has 788 video lottery terminals, or gaming machines, and it will host 70 racing dates this year, from July 27 through the middle of December.
“The competition is always something we have to be concerned about, particularly in the situation we’re in, where we don’t have the ability to provide the same gaming opportunities as some of our competitors,” Kane said. “It’s important that we have amenities that are first-class and that we provide them for as many of our customers as we can.”
Discussions about a new hotel on the site first started about five years ago, but the announcement comes as Batavia Downs wraps up a $28 million renovation of its gaming and banquet facilities. That work should be mostly finished this month, so officials began looking for a partner to develop the hotel itself.
This is the latest joint real estate venture for Baynes and Frey, who previously teamed up to redevelop the former Corn Exchange building at 100 S. Elmwood Ave. into a 26-unit loft-style apartment building.
Details of a formal purchase contract are still being ironed out, and the exact site of the hotel has not yet been determined. Kane noted that the racetrack’s property actually straddles the border between the city and town of Batavia, so either or both municipalities could be involved, depending on the final location, and officials are working through a range of issues and questions.
One benefit for the community, Kane noted, is that the property, now owned by the tax-exempt OTB, will be going back on the tax rolls. The developers and OTB plan to meet next week with city, town and county officials, and AKD plans to seek property and sales tax breaks from the Genesee County Economic Development Center. Officials hope to start construction in late spring and complete the project by yearend.
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