GUILDERLAND — The burned-out M&M Motel building at 2360 Western Ave. is set to be demolished.

Guilderland Code Enforcement Officer Louis Vitelli has declared the building unsafe.

“The building has been condemned and placarded since July 29, 2025 and property owner has been contacted multiple times with regards to demolishing the structure but no demolition paperwork has yet been filed,” Vitelli wrote in a Nov. 4 memorandum to the town.

The address is for both a house and a motel structure. The house was set on fire, police said, by one of its tenants on Jan. 26, 2024. Several men listed on the state’s sex-offender registry live at the neighboring M&M Motel structure.

The property at the time of the fire was owned by Jyotsna J. Desai of Loudonville and had a full-market value of $815,529, according to the town’s assessment roll.

The current assessment roll lists the 3-acre property as having a full-market value of $812,267. The owner is listed as 2360 Western L.P. with an address of 2696 Curry Rd., which is the address for Liedkie Moving/ A-Metro Movers.

In February, A-Metro received permission from Guilderland’s zoning board to construct four buildings on the 3-acre site: a two-story, 10,000-square-foot climate-controlled building and three smaller cold-storage structures varying in size between 5,100 and 6,800 square feet. 

The hang-up multiple boards had with the project was its proposed aesthetics. The planning board felt the proposed flat-roof design and industrial-style materials were inconsistent with the desired character of the area and suggested the applicant explore alternative materials and designs. 

To receive approval, A-Metro, which heard similar comments from the zoning board, eventually returned with a project, in the words of project architect Dan Sanders, whose “center section,” which is orange, now has a “prominent Gable on a six-on-12 pitch,” meaning, for every 12 inches moved horizontally, the roof rises 6 inches; a canopy over the front entrance; and is flanked on either end with a parapet wall.

On Dec. 2, the Guilderland Town Board, after hearing no comments on the demolition at a public hearing, voted unanimously to authorize the destruction of the burned building. 

Vitelli had written in July, “Framing members have failed and the building is unsafe and unsound due to fire damage.”

At the Dec. 2 meeting, Guilderland Superintendent Peter Barber said of the owner, “He apparently has applied for a demolition permit, doesn’t think the town needs to go through the expense.”

Nevertheless, Barber advised the board to go through with the authorization so that Vitelli “at least then has some ability to compel compliance if it doesn’t happen in a timely manner.”

Vitelli is also communicating with Albany County’s engineer, Barber said, “because, under a local law, the county has to sign off on any demolition work by the town if the town wants to add it to the tax roll.”

Barber explained the reason for the law, “Taxes often don’t get paid and then the county makes the town whole and the county gets stuck trying to recover from tax foreclosure sales.”

Deputy Supervisor Christine Napierski asked, “If the town does go forward with the demolition and takes it down, then the cost of that goes back to the property owner?”

Barber answered in the affirmative as long as the county engineer agreed the building should be condemned.

“We don’t want people stalling and stalling,” said Napierski.

“We only do this maybe once every two years,” Barber said of the town authorizing a demolition.

Councilman Gustavo Santos asked who would do the demolition.

“The town may do it if they’re comfortable doing it,” Barber responded. Barber said he would check with the highway superintendent to see if the highway department could handle it.

“If not, then we would hire an outside entity,” said Barber. “And we’d probably come back to this board” to issue a request for proposals.

Councilman Jacob Crawford asked about cleaning up the rest of the property.

“There’s still piles of garbage and other items behind the motel as well as behind the house and motel,” he said, adding, “I would have no problem even waiving the fee on the permit if we had to, if this is going to be expedited, as we’ve done for some of the other fire reconstruction in the past.”

Other business

In other business at its Dec. 2 meeting, the Guilderland Town Board:

— After a public hearing during which no one spoke, adopted a New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law article into Guilderland’s town code as requested by the town’s Traffic Safety Committee.

The article covers parking related to traffic infractions.

“Police can’t issue traffic tickets because it’s not a moving violation unless you put this in our town code ….,” said Barber. “They have no ability right now to deal with handicap-parking enforcement or the dumping or plowing of snow into parking places for the handicapped.”

Barber also said contractors often “leave nails and screws and whatnot on town roads when they’re doing a job. We can no go back and actually ticket for a proper disposal of matrials.”

He concluded, “It just gives them the ability to ticket; it doesn’t mean they’re going to ticket”:

— Granted authority to adjust the town-owned water valves on Route 20 as part of a pavement project by the state’s Department of Transportation.

“The reason we have to do this,” said Barber, “is because [Route] 20 has been paved multiple times and, as you pave and pave, it gets higher and higher, and you start interfering with our water valves— so the water valves need to be raised at the same time.”

The town’s engineer will inspect the work, which the state will pay for, Barber said, adding that the project will probably start in the early spring;

— Scheduled a public hearing for Jan. 20 at 7 p.m. on a franchise agreement between the town and Spectrum Northeast LLC;

— Appointed Lillian Sottosanti as a Guilderland Police officer. “She’s going to be a wonderful addition to our police force,” said Barber. “She’s a lateral [transfer] from the Schenectady Police Force”; and

— Scheduled the zoning board’s first meeting of 2026 for Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 7 p.m. and scheduled the town’s reorganizational meeting for Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 7 p.m.