By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- Mary Jane and Scott Smalling have sold their Smalling Motel South on U.S. Rt. 11 just south of the Village of Potsdam and have retired from the motel business.

It was bought by Dikesh Patel and has been renamed The Potsdam Inn.

Mary Jane Smalling said the timing was right for them and for Patel.

“It was 30 years,” she said, speaking of the Smalling Motel on State Rt. 56 north of Potsdam they bought in 1985 and sold later to their manager, and Smalling Motel South, formerly the Potsdam Motel, which they bought in 2000.

“It had been for sale for a while, and the timing was right for Mr. Patel. And our children are grown, and we thought 30 years was perfect,” she said.

“It’s been exciting for us, and we wish him well and hope it will be fun for them as well,” she said.

Patel said he had been looking for a property for about three years – “A lot of travel,” he said. He had been working at an EconoLodge in Marmora, N.J.

“I liked this property,” he said of the Potsdam motel. “It’s nice and clean.”

He said his family will be coming north to join him at the end of June, when his children are finished with school.

Patel said he plans no major changes anytime soon to the 16-unit accommodation.

Reservations may be made by calling 265-0709, and on the web site when it is complete