Courtesy C2 Design Group
By Rod Bacon
Construction of a retail plaza on Wolf Road in Colonie is slated to begin this month.
According to developer Russ Faden, financing has been secured through Pioneer Bank and all approvals are in place except for a permit from the Department of Transportation.
“All the contractors are lined up and we’re ready to go,” he said. “We’re just waiting on that last permit.”
Scott Lansing of Malta-based Lansing Engineering PC did much of the work to secure the approvals and permits.
The 6,400-square-foot building, designed by C2 Design Group of Schenectady, can accommodate three tenants, one of which will be a Subway sandwich shop. The estimated cost is $2.5 million.
“I own the Subway shop and we’re assuming there will be two other businesses in there,” Faden said.
Faden owns 41 Subway franchises. Most of them are in the Albany area but his reach extends north to Lake George, west to Cobleskill, and east into Vermont and Massachusetts. He said they are a combination of existing ones he purchased and others he built from the ground up, many in commercial plazas he has developed.
He started developing commercial plazas in 2018 and has built six since then. He said he likes to own the real estate where his Subway shops are located because he has control over the site and it’s the best way to generate long-term income.
He completed one recently in The Outlets at Lake George that includes 8,400-square-feet of retail space and 24 storage units in the rear. It is fully tenanted with one of his Subway shops, a Silver Cannabis Dispensary, a Hi nails beauty salon, and a Tommy Bahama outlet. He still has a few storage units available.
“I built the storage units because it is the best use of the property,” he said. “They’re hidden behind the commercial building. Now that I’ve had success with these I plan to look for opportunities to build more.”
He has two other commercial developments in Queensbury that are in the planning stages. One is retail and the other is slated to have approximately 34 apartments.
“We’re about to submit our conceptual to the town on that one, so it’s very early in the process,” he said.
Another project in the early planning stage is a 74-unit apartment building at the corner of West Avenue and Station Lane in Saratoga Springs. Plans call for one- and two-bedroom apartments. Lansing Engineering is working with local officials on securing the permits.
After earning a degree in criminal justice from Salem International University in West Virginia, Faden was a patrol officer with the Saratoga Springs Police Department for 12 years. He started his entrepreneurial journey in 2007 while still on the force when he purchased his first Subway shop on Broadway. He remained with the police force for five years before he was able to transition full time to the business.
In July 2017 Subway implemented its Fresh Forward initiative, requiring its franchisees to modernize their stores, giving them a brighter, more open look. To date, Faden has remodeled 35 of his locations to the concept and any stores he acquires in the future will be built to these specifications.
“Within two more years all my stores will be remodeled according to the concept,” he said.
With so many locations Faden obviously cannot oversee all of them on a daily basis. He said he has committed, hard working employees at every level who keep thing running smoothly. Every store has a manager and there are area managers and a maintenance crew as well. Between full- and part-time workers he employs 300 people.
“We have a big team of people and everyone does their part,” he said. “It’s definitely a team effort.”