Albany, NY -- New Places: Ballinger's/74 State
I was strolling around downtown a couple of days ago when I passed the old Ogden's restaurant building on Howard Street and noticed that a new restaurant is opening up at the same location. Ballingers (no apostrophe, for whatever reason -- the owner's name is Douglas Ballinger) opens up on May 3rd. It's down the street from me, so I'm going to try to make it. I wonder if it can succeed where Daniel's (the restaurant that succeeded Ogden's in 2003) failed?Last night, I paid a visit to the bar at 74 State, the new hotel on State Street. I was pretty surprised to find that there were a lot of people there, mostly in their 40s, and a few official looking guys (the kind who are usually gone on the weekends). Nice jazz band, and great creme brulee. Sometime in the next few weeks, I'm going to have dinner there. Tim, the bartender, told me that business has been pretty good at the hotel. Hopefully, that can keep up -- it's a fairly upscale hotel, and wouldn't have fit in in Albany 3-4 years ago. As recently as 2005, there was only one hotel (the Crowne Plaza) in downtown Albany. Now, with 74 State and the Hampton Inn, there are three, and a Holiday Inn Express figures to open up on Broadway in the next few months. Plans for at least a couple more hotels are in the works.
I've been doing a lot of reading up on development in Albany, and I'll share a bit more over the next few weeks.
Labels: Albany
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