The Geneseo Planning Board approved a revised Lowe’s plan submitted by Newman Development Monday night and then adopted a Positive Finding under SEQR. The new Lowe’s plan is based on the smallest prototype store that Lowe’s builds with 104,000 square feet of sales space plus a 31,000 square foot garden center. Along with storage space the total square footage would be 155,433.
This is about 9 per cent smaller than the 169,000 square foot store that Newman had originally proposed, but 15,000 square feet larger than the 140,000 square foot limit placed on the store by the planning board just two weeks ago. The approved store would be slightly smaller in total area than the Lowe’s Henrietta store which totals 162,000 square feet.
The board also revisited the question of the Lowe’s orientation, but decided to stay with the CP-3 plan facing Volunteer Road that was approved at the last meeting. The developer had wanted the CP-5 plan which faces more towards Rt. 20-A. A majority of four members, however refused to budge from their feeling that the need to limit future sprawl to the east on Rt. 20-A outweighed any other considerations on this issue. Those four were Marge Wilkie, Patti Lavigne, Tom Curtin and Hank Latorella.
Other questions about building elevation, height and materials were deferred to the site plan review phase which will commence after the proposal goes to the Town Board for PDD zoning approval. Board member Hank Latorella suggested that the developer should be required to face the building with brick. It was pointed out that the proposal will now go before the Architectural Review Committee which is comprised of Ken Book, Dan Dimpfl and Marge Wilkie for recommendations on such matters.
1 response so far ↓
Bob // May 29, 2008 at 4:22 pm
This is probably about as good a compromise as could have been made. Congrats to the Planning Board. One must wonder what the other 3 members disagreed with about this plan. I suggest that this board meet with Deputy Mayor Sandy Brennan and those who served so well with her on the Village Planning Board during the Site Plan Review for Super Wal-Mart. That group did a phenomenal job for Geneseo in creating a building which complements our community.
BTW I would suggest that Lowe’s use the block construction with faux brick facing used by Wal-Mart as a more cost-effective construction than a real brick facing–on all four sides as is W-M. We seem to be getting back to the kind of community for which we came here in the first place. Let’s keep it up!