The Vacant Corner That Shaped Glen Lake's 2026 Season

When the Glens Falls Chronicle photographed the site last December, it showed a single-story building with gray siding and a gabled roof. Shrubs had grown up around it and a "For Sale" sign stood out front. This is the former Blue Moose Restaurant, at the corner of Route 9 and Glen Lake Road. Glens Falls Chronicle reported that Cole's Collision wants to open its eighth location there, and that the Glen Lake Protective Association was opposing the plan.

That proposal ended up setting Glen Lake's agenda for most of 2026. It brought a full room to Planning Board meetings in a snowstorm. It also changed how the lake association spent its money and which water samples it took. Anyone who boats, swims or fishes Glen Lake will find the effects of that corner in this year's lake records.

What Cole's Collision is proposing

The plan calls for tearing down the 2,500-square-foot former restaurant and putting up a 16,000-square-foot building. It would hold an office, vehicle work areas, parts storage, a wash bay and customer service. The site plan shows 129 parking spaces, with 86 for vehicles waiting for repair and 43 for customers and employees, plus fencing and lighting.

Cole's is based in Colonie. Its nearest location today is off Northway Exit 16 in Wilton. The lot is zoned Commercial Intensive. As the Chronicle's March coverage summarized it, the applicant argues the project will bring local jobs, support nearby businesses and offer a service residents currently have to travel for. Neighbors who spoke raised possible harm to Glen Lake, more traffic, and whether the project fits the area.

The corner also sits beside the lake's inlet wetland, known as the Glen Lake Fen. The Town of Queensbury designated the Glen Lake and Surrounding Area as a Critical Environmental Area, effective November 30, 1989, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's list of CEAs. DEC explains that a CEA's characteristics must be considered when a reviewing agency decides whether a proposed action could have a significant environmental effect. That is why the designation comes up at every hearing on this corner.

A hearing date that keeps slipping

The review has now been pushed back more times than most residents can keep track of. Here is the timeline as the record shows it.

After the April meeting, project attorney Jon Lapper told the Chronicle that "the applicant is reviewing the comments from the Planning Board and the public." He added that specific changes had not yet been decided. According to the GLPA's August newsletter, Cole's attorney said at a summer meeting that "Coles will be ready for the October meeting." The October date then slipped as well.

The association's October newsletter said no reason was given for the latest delay. It also said a firm November date would not be set until the Planning Board met again in late October. The town's calendar listed that meeting for Tuesday, October 27, at 7 p.m. The November date should appear on the Town of Queensbury's agendas and minutes page, which links to Planning Board agendas and meeting documents.

The sampling season that went to lawyers instead

For six years, Glen Lake had an E. coli sampling program. In 2026 it did not. The GLPA's October newsletter says the decision was financial. In spring 2026, the board voted to skip the program for the year and use that money for an attorney and an environmental engineer to oppose the Cole's proposal.

The association's case is that the trade costs less than it might seem. The newsletter says the six years of results point to general "hot spots" around the lake. It also says the biologists who reviewed the data were clear that E. coli can come from non-human sources such as waterfowl, so the tests cannot identify which septic systems, if any, are leaking. The GLPA says it uses those reports alongside an analysis of the age of septic systems around the lake. The data series still has a one-year gap. Whenever sampling resumes, the 2026 row will be blank.

A year with other gaps in the record

The skipped sampling would matter less if everything else had run normally. Two other parts of the lake's monitoring also had trouble in 2026.

The weather station is gone. The station's two most useful sensors, lake level and water temperature, stopped working from August 5, 2025, to June 1, 2026. The newsletter says the GLPA and Warren County Soil and Water replaced parts and cables and updated the software, and none of it worked. The station was then removed at the property owner's request, as the contract allowed. The association says it is talking with Warren County Soil and Water about a new station. In the meantime, a lake resident volunteer supplies daily lake level and rain readings.

The weed treatment fell short. The GLPA asked its contractor to survey the lake's aquatic plants on July 29 to see how well this year's herbicide treatment had worked. According to the August newsletter, it "did not adequately control the targeted invasive and nuisance plants." Parts of the lake were left with substantial beds of milfoil and pondweed. The contractor agreed to fix the problem, with details to be shared at the August membership meeting. A map of the 2025–26 Illinois pondweed treatment areas is posted on the association's website.

The boating advice from that survey still holds for anyone heading out on a mild late-season day. These plants spread by fragments and seeds, which boats carry across the lake when they run through the beds. The association asks boaters to stay outside the buoyed areas, pick up floating weeds, and throw them away well back from the shore.

The long-running records that kept going

Glen Lake's two longest data series carried on through all of this. The GLPA has taken part in DEC's Citizens Statewide Lake Assessment Program for more than 40 years. That program covers water chemistry, surface and deep temperatures, and clarity, and the association describes Glen Lake as one of its first and longest-running participants. The GLPA has also paid for annual aquatic plant studies by qualified biologists for more than 25 years. That second series is the one that caught this summer's milfoil problem.

The 2025 Glen Lake Watershed Management Plan, prepared with LaBella Environmental Engineers, pulls together past studies of the lake, the Fen and the watershed. It also makes recommendations, which the association says it is reviewing with input from members. One of them asks whether to request that the Town of Queensbury set up a mandatory septic inspection program for Glen Lake, modeled on the Lake George Park Commission's program. The GLPA says it will take that up with members. The full plan is listed on the GLPA resources page.

The rest of the lake's year

There was more to the season than hearings. The August membership meeting was also the summer picnic, held at the Reardon Road common lot. The association provided hamburgers and hot dogs, and members brought dishes to share. People arriving by boat had a couple of open slips at the dock and were asked to steer clear of the big milfoil bed. A new July 4th Boat Parade Committee also formed, following a parade its members called excellent.

Across the lake at the public boat launch, the Docksider says it stays open year-round. In fall and spring the deck is enclosed and heated, and in winter tables move indoors, some by the fireplace and some looking out over the lake.

What November decides

When Cole's Collision returns to the Planning Board, the GLPA will arrive with the attorney and environmental engineer it chose to retain with the money from this year's E. coli sampling, and it has urged members to attend. As of the April hearing, the applicant had not settled on changes to the plan. Whatever version comes back, the board will be reviewing a 1989 Critical Environmental Area designation beside a lake whose 2026 record is missing its E. coli season and its weather station. The association's homepage says the November date would be decided after the board's late-October meeting.

If you own on Glen Lake and want to understand how a corner like this, or a gap in the lake's records, could matter for your property down the road, Davies-Davies & Associates Real Estate LLC has followed the lakes around Queensbury for decades and is glad to talk it through. Contact Us.