Some knew it as an old potato chip factory while others remember Saratoga Winners as a concert venue, hosting performances by artists before they were famous, but following a fire Thursday, April 30, that destroyed the Capital District landmark, many questions linger regarding the building, including who owns it.
Ron Monfils, Colonie town assessor, said the most current information the assessor’s office has regarding the owners of the building shows that Stephen and Nickole Sutliff were the last to purchase the property which was actually two separate parcels of land on June 14, 2007, for $950,000. On July 18, 2007, Monfils said, the two parcels were legally combined to be one 3.83-acre parcel of land, including the building.
Attempts to reach the Sutliffs were unsuccessful.
According to Monfils, the assessor’s office had heard that the property had been sold about a month ago, although the office could not confirm the new deed with the Albany County clerk. Typically, Monfils said, the deed is recorded with the county and then a copy is sent to the town and state.
`But we have not received a sale transfer in our office yet, and we checked with Albany County and we cannot see where anything was recorded yet,` said Monfils. `So if there’s a sale, it must not be recorded.`
Monfils said the last time the assessor’s office checked with Albany County for the deed was Friday, May 1, after the office had received several phone calls following the fire.
Albany County Clerk Tom Clingan said his office is constantly updating its Web site, www.albanycounty.com, with information about deeds, generally taking no more than 48 hours to put up new information.
Clingan said he asked his secretary to go through all of the files in the county clerk’s office to look for the new deed for the Saratoga Winners property.
`We have not seen it in our office yet, and my secretary, Linda, just went through all of the deeds that are pending, which is not a lot considering once we have them we update [the Web site],` Clingan said. `We have nothing in our records yet that’s been submitted for recording.`
What this means, Clingan said, is that if there has been a change of ownership, the new owners, or their attorney who worked on the deed, have not yet submitted it to the county clerk. Typically, a new deed must be submitted to the county within four to six weeks, Clingan said.
`It may be that they have a deed, and they just have not brought it down to be recorded yet. That’s not unusual,` he said.
According to Chief of Colonie Fire Services Peter Lattanzio, the building, located at 1375 Loudon Road, `consumed itself in a short amount of time.` The fire, which is still being investigated by Colonie Police, broke out at about 3:13 a.m.
Lattanzio said the fire took place in the Boght Fire District, and by the time the district responded, the building was `heavily involved in fire.` Lattanzio said it was not long before the entire building collapsed.
`It collapsed down within a half hour or 45 minutes of the fire being discovered,` he said.
Lattanzio also said, `Because there are no hydrants up there, we had to get tankers to bring in large volumes of water.`
He said the tankers came from a few lower Saratoga County fire districts.
Regardless of the building’s ownership or how the fire started, the blaze that destroyed it brought an end to the long line of various incarnations the structure went through.
Lattanzio said that the building had been around since the early 1900s.
`It’s had a variety of uses,` said Lattanzio. `It was a potato chip factory, it was a dance hall, then it was converted to a bar.`
As a bar, Lattanzio said, the venue was used to hold rock concerts, but for the past several years has been vacant.
`The previous owners actually had some plans to renovate the building, but they never submitted for a building permit,` said Lattanzio.
He said the owners did have an approved demolition permit, which they used to complete indoor demolition, but he believes that the work had just about been completed.“