GUILDERLAND — Crossgates is not going into the hotel business, said Pyramid Management Group partner, Michael Shanley, on Thursday.

Shanley wanted to quell rumors that the Pyramid Group, which owns Crossgates Mall, had bought 1645 Western Ave., where Nosh Delicatessen was located for two years, in order to build a hotel there.

Nosh closed its doors after the dinner service on Oct. 30, and co-owner Joshua Wachs told The Enterprise last week that the restaurant’s lease was up, and Pyramid had bought the property.

Wachs would not comment on whether he had wanted to continue the lease or whether the restaurant would move to a new location.

The property faces a portion of Western Avenue in front of the mall and a Crossgates expansion along that stretch has been rumored for several years.

The mall opened in 1983 with about 875,000 square feet. In 1994, it added 650,000 square feet, and, in 1997, an 18-screen cinema opened, increasing the number of screens to 30.

In late 2013, the mall proposed an expansion of two stories and 20,000 square feet, on the southern side of the mall. In the fifth amendment to the mall’s special-use permit since 1984, the “bump out” provides space for two restaurants and two entertainment venues.

Texas de Brazil, a Brazilian steakhouse, opened in the space, and Latitude 360, a dining and entertainment venue, with bowling lanes and a game room, is slated to open this month.

The mall expanded into an unused parking lot and therefore did not encroach on any of the other properties it had purchased.

In 1998, when Pyramid had plans to build an eight-story hotel and a recreation facility at Crossgates, more than doubling the mall to about 3.6 million square feet, it bought up the residential properties in a nearby neighborhood at twice or even three times their assessed values. Massive citizen protests of the expansion project led the town not to approve the required zoning changes.

At the time, the transactions were secret; the properties were purchased in the name of Warp Enterprises and Westville Associations, and residents who sold signed non-disclosure statements that one said stipulated, “We’re not even supposed to tell we have a contract.”

Shanley said this week, however, that the purchase of the property on Western is not for the purpose of mall expansion.

He said that the owner of the property has Wendy’s restaurants in Vermont, and used to have some in New York — the Nosh building used to be a Wendy’s.

Shanley said the owner wanted to sell his last property in New York, and, when the Nosh lease was up, two of the three restaurant partners wanted to continue, but one wanted out of the business.

Pyramid agreed to buy the property, he said, and he expects that Nosh, or a similar restaurant, will re-open there in the coming months, with two owners instead of three.

Neighbors on nearby residential streets, Rielton Court and Gabriel Terrace, were nervous and speculating because in 2011, houses in those neighborhoods, which had been bought by Pyramid in 1998 as a  “buffer” between the mall and Western Avenue, were boarded up without explanation.

Stephen Cadalso, who lives on Rielton Court, told The Enterprise then that “plywood went up and the ‘Keep Out’ signs with no explanation. There’s no rhyme or reason.’”

Joseph Castaldo, who was manager of the mall in 2011, and was recently replaced by Michael Patounas, said that the mall had no expansion plans at that time, and that the houses were boarded up because of “maintenance issues.”

Patounas did not return Enterprise phone calls this week.

Cadalso told The Enterprise this week that the properties owned by Crossgates have been maintained more adequately since neighbors made complaints in 2011 and 2012.

He said he had heard that the Pyramid Group had bought the property where Nosh is, but, that he was unaware of any new activity by Crossgates in his neighborhood.

Cadalso had heard rumors that the mall planned to build either a hotel or an “upscale bowling alley” along Western Avenue.

Shanley said the mall is building a bowling alley — but inside the mall, as part of Latitude 360 — and reiterated that it did not plan to open a hotel.

“We’re also not going into the business of buying individual restaurants,” said Shanley, noting that the Nosh property was an exception.

Wachs still would not comment on the future of Nosh this week and declined to respond to Shanley’s assertions.