Sabre Technical Services
Makes a sharp move to old  car dealership

NEW SCOTLAND — The empty Saab dealership on New Scotland Road is no longer empty, thanks to local business owners John Mason and Karen Cavanagh.

The New Scotland couple own Sabre Technical Services, which currently operates out of Watervliet, according to their building design consultant Bruce Houghton.

Houghton, also a town resident, represented Sabre at the town planning board here last week. The planning board approved a site plan application to change the use of the property from car sales and service to office use.

A temporary Sabre Technical Services sign already hangs in the former Saab dealership window between two distinctive blue columns. The Carl family ran the automobile sales business in New Scotland for 44 years, and moved the business to Slingerlands in 1982. The Carls closed the doors on the Saab dealership in 2005.

“The building is perfectly suited for their operation,” Houghton told The Enterprise. The front of the building will be used for office space, and the former automobile service bay will store materials used by Sabre.

“They’re a global corporation. They do air monitoring…a wide range of services, disinfectants for water treatment — chemical parts of what people would use to treat their water,” Houghton said. “They work in the oil fields in Texas doing water reclamation.” Sabre treats vegetables from the fields with materials that are better than the chlorine in Chlorox that other people use, he said.

The company also enshrouds buildings to treat them for mold and mildew, he said.

Houghton said that the wastewater leaving the former Saab building will be less than the amount formerly released by the car dealership. Sabre hopes to connect to the town sewer on New Scotland Road to eliminate the hybrid sand-filter system that now takes storm water and sewage to a stream down the road, he said.

Robert Stapf, the planning board chairman, told The Enterprise that traffic would be less with Sabre than with the former dealership.

“It’s a decent use for the property,” Stapf said.

The converted building will be Sabre’s major administrative headquarters, Houghton said. The site will house primarily office space; only a minimum of testing will occur there, he said. Equipment used to treat areas in the Northeast or along the east coast will be stored there, he said.

Sabre is waiting for financing to reconstruct the building. Houghton said that he expects the building permit to be granted within two weeks, so that work on the interior can begin. On the exterior, the two blue columns and the sign will come down, returning the building to its original form, Houghton said.

Sabre has “an excellent reputation” with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory agencies, Houghton said.

“I’ve checked them out online and with other professionals,” Stapf said. He said that the federal government had sent Sabre to New Orleans to help with issues caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The company currently has 10 to 12 employees, Houghton said. Some will soon relocate here from Texas. Once Sabre expands, there could also be jobs for local residents, he said.

“It’s a great opportunity for the town,” Houghton said. “It gets the building back in operation, and back on the tax rolls. It’s good for the community.”

In other business, the planning board last week:

— Set a public hearing for Amedore Homes’ subdivision application for property near the Colonie Golf and Country Club on Route 85A. Neighbors suggested that wood turtles on the property would be disturbed if construction were allowed there.

“The wood turtle is not an endangered species,” Stapf told The Enterprise. “It’s an animal of interest.”

He said that the turtles do exist on the property, but that they probably live in a pit area, which would be preserved as open space under the 35-unit cluster plan.

“If anything, we would be preserving the habitat for that species,” Stapf said;

— Agreed to allow Blackbirds Prime Properties to subdivide its property on New Scotland Road that houses both an auto garage and manufactured homes into two parcels for tax and insurance purposes, Stapf said;

— Tabled a request by Greg Ferentino and Walter Vivenzio for a special-use permit to create a private driveway across four parcels at Salem Court and nearby Fielding Way.

The applicants had told the board that they want a way to get from their interior lots, of which both own two, to Krumkill Road without dealing with their neighbor in the front of the lots.

Stapf had said earlier that a road could not be put in near Salem Court because of a blind curve where there is no sight-distance;

 The board also tabled a request by Mary A. Ferentino to amend her special-use permit for a kennel operation at her Fielding Way property. Stapf said that the two projects are related; a decision on one cannot be made until more information is available on the other, he said; and

—     Continued a hearing for an application by Matthew Fiske to subdivide his 18.82-acre property into five lots. Stapf said that a full storm-water prevention plan would need to be submitted because more than five acres will be disturbed. Wetland delineation also needs to be done, he said, and must be delayed until better weather and an appointment with the Army Corps of Engineers can be made.