Knicklas Emden, seen here holding his 2-year-old son Brantley, and a business partner purchased The Budget Inn in Palatine Bridge last year. Emden initially thought it was a house when he saw the address on a list of properties whose owners were behind on their taxes.
The Budget Inn dates from a time before the New York State Thruway, when east-west travelers passed through Palatine Bridge using state Route 5. The motel received new owners last year.
The Budget Inn dates from a time before the New York State Thruway, when east-west travelers passed through Palatine Bridge using state Route 5. The motel received new owners last year.
The Budget Inn changed hands a year ago. The new owners say a name change could be in store for the Palatine Bridge property, which is having all of its rooms renovated.
A sign in the parking lot of The Budget Inn in Palatine Bridge directs guests to the rooms which are located behind the main motel. These rooms remain closed and won’t be renovated until next spring.
After brewing countless pots of coffee over the years, the industrial coffeemaker at The Budget Inn will soon again be used to make hot beverages for guests at the Palatine Bridge motel. The inn’s owners have been renovating its rooms since they took over a year ago.
Knicklas Emden, seen here holding his 2-year-old son Brantley, and a business partner purchased The Budget Inn in Palatine Bridge last year. Emden initially thought it was a house when he saw the address on a list of properties whose owners were behind on their taxes.
Charles Erickson PHOTOS
The Budget Inn is the first place of business travelers encounter when they enter Palatine Bridge from the east on state Route 5.
Charles Erickson
The Budget Inn dates from a time before the New York State Thruway, when east-west travelers passed through Palatine Bridge using state Route 5. The motel received new owners last year.
Charles Erickson
The Budget Inn dates from a time before the New York State Thruway, when east-west travelers passed through Palatine Bridge using state Route 5. The motel received new owners last year.
Charles Erickson
The Budget Inn changed hands a year ago. The new owners say a name change could be in store for the Palatine Bridge property, which is having all of its rooms renovated.
Charles Erickson
A sign in the parking lot of The Budget Inn in Palatine Bridge directs guests to the rooms which are located behind the main motel. These rooms remain closed and won’t be renovated until next spring.
Charles Erickson
The Budget Inn property overlooks state Route 5, the CSX railroad tracks and the New York State Thruway at Palatine Bridge.
Charles Erickson
The driveway to The Budget Inn slopes down and intersects with state Route 5 just inside the Palatine Bridge village line.
Charles Erickson
After brewing countless pots of coffee over the years, the industrial coffeemaker at The Budget Inn will soon again be used to make hot beverages for guests at the Palatine Bridge motel. The inn’s owners have been renovating its rooms since they took over a year ago.
The Budget Inn in Palatine Bridge has 32 rooms, but only nine of them have been renovated and are habitable.
A year ago, that number was zero, when Knicklas Emden and a business associate bought the motel.
“You should have seen this place,” Emden said on a recent Saturday morning, standing in the office lobby and holding his son, 2-year-old Brantley.
The area was clean. Even the Bunn industrial coffee maker that the new owners will likely turn on when they start providing free continental-type breakfasts had been wiped down.
A year ago, the lobby was stacked with worn furniture pulled from the rooms, and the manager’s apartment beside the lobby was unkempt and contained many dirty litter boxes.
“It was just awful,” Emden said.
The motel at 93 East Grand St. has 22 rooms in the main building, with wings to the east and west of the office. Another 10 rooms are in a building that sits behind the primary structure.
Renovations to the east wing are now underway, Emden explained, and the rooms in the back building will be done in the spring. After that, the exteriors of the main and auxiliary buildings will receive a freshening.
Emden has been living in the manager’s apartment and performing much of the work himself.
“We need more eye appeal on the outside,” Emden said. “But the most important thing is getting these rooms situated so we can get people in here.”
The Budget Inn is owned by an LLC named Potato Ventures. Emden is a member of the company, along with Ovyid Jordhoit, a Norwegian man in his 60s whom his business partner calls “Eddie.” The LLC’s name, Emden said, is a tribute to Jordhoit’s youth, when the poor boy harvested potatoes in his native Norway.
Jordhoit was traveling, according to his partner, and was then in Rome, Italy — not the city in New York.
“But we are about to pick a liquor store in that Rome, in Oneida County,” Emden said. In addition to the motel in Palatine Bridge, Potato Ventures has also purchased a motel in Pulaski in Oswego County. That 17-room property was in much better condition than The Budget Inn, Emden said, and only needed updates to its aesthetics.
The motels and liquor store are not the only things that occupy Emden’s professional life. He is also on the staff of Wagner Real Estate Group, based in Saratoga Springs, and is working on a number of listed properties. A whiteboard in the office tracks the deals which have moved to closing.
“I’m just buried in real estate,” he said. “It just paid off. I have not stopped working in two years. Every single day, I just keep working.”
Emden is 28, a Johnstown native, and joined the U.S. Army when was 19. He served much of his enlistment at Fort Drum, near Watertown, and left the service as a human resources specialist. He then got a job with a home heating company in Duanesburg.
“I dragged oil lines over my back. I crawled under trailers while the lead sat in the truck and waited for me to do it,” he recalled.
Emden began studying for the state’s licensed real estate salesperson test. His coworkers teased him for wanting a career change, but Emden said he was undeterred and spent every free moment preparing for the exam. He passed the test on the first try and immediately put in his notice with the heating company.
Newly licensed, Emden began visiting county offices and pulling lists of properties whose owners were either behind on their taxes or their mortgage payments. He would talk to the owners, he said, and sometimes offer to buy them out. This is how he came to purchase a two-family home in Fort Plain, and it grew his interest in properties that produced income.
When Emden saw a Palatine Bridge address on one of the county lists, he drove there expecting it to be a house — and was surprised by the decrepit motel that loomed over state Route 5 and was visible from the New York State Thruway.
“I had no interest in getting into the hospitality industry,” he said. “And not with a place like this.”
The motel’s main driveway forms an arc, connecting the state highway with a side entrance on Failing Hill Rd.
Rooms are $100 a night or $350 a week. Some people have stayed at the motel for over a month, but there is no 30-day rate and such guests pay by the week.
“We’re flexible,” Emden said. “If people are in tight situations, we like to help them out. We give them a significant discount.”
On this Saturday in the middle of February, eight of the motel’s nine rooms were occupied by a combination of nightly and weekly guests.
Emden runs the motel with the assistance of two independent contractors — a housekeeper and a maintenance person.
Dennis Abare has helped patch and repair The Budget Inn for nearly eight years. He experienced what it was prior to February 2024 and the transformation — wing by wing — being made by its new owners.
“It’s a lot quieter now,” he said. “The cops aren’t here all the time. Everybody gets along and the tenants all talk to each other.”
Three of the guests stood outside their rooms and conversed. Two of them had moved to Palatine Bridge from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, after a fire at their home.
“I got a recommendation from someone down at a gas station,” said Tayshia Lynn Chaloux. “They told me that this place was lenient and there were friendly people.”
Her cohabitant, Austin Thomas, nodded. They had been in the motel for two weeks.
The other person in the conversation, Dyrek Wingate, had been a guest for a month. He moved in after having apartments in Utica and Rome.
“I’m just kind of existing, I guess,” Wingate said. He noted that he was an excellent typist and hoped to find a job that involved clerical work.
Emden invited a visitor to see the before and after of his rehabilitation efforts, beginning in Room 107, the only vacancy in the renovated wing. It was neat but not fancy, with laminate floors and neutral-colored walls and new fixtures in the bathroom. There were two king-sized mattresses — one atop boxsprings and another on the floor. The floor mattress was added as a courtesy to some construction workers, Emden said, so they could double up in the room.
On the other side of the office, Emden opened the door to Room 107. Its walls were painted yellow and the carpeting had been ripped from the chipboard floors, which bowed with every step. The bathroom fixtures were old and covered with filth.
“Can you believe it?” Emden asked as the floor trembled. “They had people living in here.”
