To the Editor:
As the president of Charles Bohl Inc., I believe it is time to set the record straight and stop the uninformed comments on our “dilapidated” properties and the status of the environmental issues.

We have owned 2298 - 2316 Western Ave. (except the dry-cleaner site which is 2312 Western Ave.) for over 100 years. My father owned the Bohl Bus Lines that was the forerunner to the Capital District Transportation Authority and transported residents to Albany, Schenectady, and Castleton.

He also provided free bus rides and movie tickets to Guilderland residents during the Great Depression, in addition to many many other charitable endeavors back when this was a fairly rural community. The house at 2314 Western Ave. is where I grew up.

We have been longtime taxpayers in the town of Guilderland. People may describe some of these buildings as “abandoned.” Abandoned buildings don’t pay $53,000 per year to the town in taxes. We have never, ever missed a tax payment.  

We bought the Master Dry Cleaner site (which was truly an abandoned site; we bought it out of foreclosure from Albany County) in 2011 to have contiguous frontage on Route 20 for a potential buyer who was going to develop a senior living facility. This was before there were any in town.

We worked with this buyer for several years to convince him to do the groundwork to get this ready and then he failed to get financing. We were then left with a contaminated dry-cleaner site.

By the way, that site is assessed at a value of $294,000 despite our contesting that assessment; $8,021 in taxes were paid on that site in 2021. Anyone interested in buying that for $294,000?

We have been actively trying to sell these properties for 15 years. In that time, we have spent $750,000 in taxes to the town. 

We had interest 10 years ago for storage units but at that time the master plan and zoning wouldn’t allow that in the town limits. We have had lots of issues we have taken care of without fanfare.

The state’s Department of Transportation entered one of our properties without our permission (2312 Western Ave. again) to dig up a clogged storm drain; they hit an old buried oil tank and we were forced to clean up that spill at a cost of $95,000.

This was not our fault in any way; we never buried that tank and we never gave permission for anyone to dig on the site. But we did the cleanup and didn’t cause a fuss. It had to be done.

We decided after that to make the properties more marketable that we should check all the sites for potential buried oil tanks, etc. to make sure that all the sites on the property were clean enough for proposed uses.

We discovered old gas contamination from a probable gas spill at one point in the past at the previous Sunoco/Guilderland towing site (2300 Western Ave.) in addition to other buried tanks on other sites, which we removed cost us over $1,000,000.

Yes, you read that correctly. We did it, we got clearance and approval and certificates from the state’s Department of Conservation on all the sites except the dry-cleaner site.

The Master Cleaner site was never owned or operated by us. And in fact the contamination from that site was found on our sites and we had to clean that up, paid for by us as there are no owners in that chain of ownership (including Albany County) who can pay for the cleanup of the contamination they caused. 

The salient point that no one seems to understand is that we are not the typical owner who would walk away and stick the taxpayers to clean it up. That’s what happens to these sites typically. Owners walk and taxpayers foot the bill.

We may have to do that at some point but we have been actively trying to get our buyer (under contract for two years now) to get approved by the DEC on our Brownfield Cleanup Program plan, which we have spent over $100,000 in testing and engineering to apply for the program ourselves.

The DEC Brownfield Cleanup Program program gives a developer approximately 30 percent of the cleanup cost back in a tax break — it is not 100 percent — but it has a private buyer do the cleanup. The cleanup is estimated by the DEC to cost about $2 million. Yes again, you read that correctly.

So I ask you this — would you rather we walk away as most all other owners of these sites do and declare bankruptcy and stick the taxpayers to bear this cost of cleanup or continue to work with a private developer to get this cleaned up privately?

We have had a contract to buy and develop this property now for two years. And, yes, it is apartments. We are awaiting DOT approval of the plan; we had to wait a year for the DEC to approve the buyer’s co-application on our Brownfield Cleanup Program application.

We are swimming in debt. The purchase price will not even be 50 percent of what we owe. We are just trying to sell, move on, let this property be developed and modernized.

If this project falls through, we will join the rest of similar owners and walk away. That is bad for the town, bad for the country, and horrible for taxpayers.

So, unless you are willing to step up and buy this property, I ask you to listen to the facts. And maybe try to be supportive when this project comes to the boards for approval. No one wants this property sold and developed more than we do.  

Charles A. Bohl

President

Charles Bohl Inc.