Morrow Has New Plans For 'Tuckahoe Main Street'

After running into a wall of opposition to his proposal for an ambitious multifaceted shopping center in Tuckahoe, developer Robert Morrow is pitching a new design to residents and lawmakers, one that greatly scales back the amount of retail space but keeps the large King Kullen supermarket that Mr. Morrow has claimed residents have asked for.

The new designs, which Mr. Morrow has shown to members of the Town Board and presented to the Tuckahoe Citizens Advisory Committee on Tuesday evening, call for just 15,000 square feet of retail stores adjacent to the 40,000-square-foot supermarket. That compares with a total of 75,000 square feet of additional retail proposed in the original plan, dubbed “Tuckahoe Main Street” by the developer. A third building on the property, just 3,500 square feet, would house a bank branch in the new plan.

A 100-foot strip of undeveloped, landscaped land would set the development back from County Road 39. Access to the property would be similar to that proposed in the initial plans: a side entrance off Magee Street, as well as an entrance and exit onto County Road 39, though no cars would be permitted to turn left, to the west, when leaving the property.

There would be no residential apartments above any of the storefronts. The first plan called for 12 one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Mr. Morrow’s new design now incorporates property now occupied by a hotel and restaurant adjacent to the 12 acres he has already bought with partners Lyle and Gary Pike and Lance Nill. The development would be spread over a 6-acre commercially zoned parcel and the 1.7-acre hotel parcel. Unlike the original plan, it does not call for any commercial development on an 8-acre parcel to the south that is zoned for residential development—the original plan stretched onto that property as well. Mr. Morrow said on Tuesday that he has a contract to purchase the hotel and restaurant property.

The revised plans also abandon the request for a planned development district to get past the area’s current zoning restrictions, opting instead for a 
change of zone request from “highway business” to “shopping center business.” The switch would still require permission from the Town Board, as 
well as the proffering of some “community benefit” in order to be granted. With a PDD, new rules for usage can be established; Mr. Morrow’s revised plan meets the current restrictions of a “shopping center business” zone.

Despite the changes, which Mr. Morrow said have been received positively by local lawmakers, the new proposal was not well-received by members of the Tuckahoe CAC on 
Tuesday. Even with the greatly reduced commercial development, committee members said concerns about the traffic the market would bring to the already bustling stretch of County Road 39 still made the idea of such a development there impractical and unpalatable for residents.

“There is a reason that supermarkets are not allowed on highways,” Susan Van Olst told Mr. Morrow and his partners. “They cause too much traffic.”

“This is already a very dangerous road,” added Lyn Fitzgerald.

The CAC members also said they worried that the commercial businesses would draw truck traffic, for deliveries to the property’s stores, down residential streets when traffic on the highway was bad.

The current zoning on the parcels Mr. Morrow and his 
partners have bought would allow up to four 15,000-square-foot commercial buildings to be built, though the town code restricts the types of businesses that can be built to those 
deemed to have a low traffic impact—offices, commercial businesses or retailers selling goods that are not common everyday needs, like furniture or appliances.

Mr. Morrow said in an interview on Tuesday that he 
would not propose a zone 
change for the residential portion of the property but would likely seek to develop it with housing at some point in the future, though no specific plans are in the works. He said the zoning would probably allow the construction of up to nine 
homes. Such promises did not quell concern that the property would one day be merged into the adjacent commercial development by the more skeptical of the CAC’s membership.

“Once the commercial zoning is changed, the residential will fall right in also,” Frances Genovese said.

Originally, the residential parcel had been the targeted for the placement of the supermarket, which would have put it adjacent neighboring residential areas, and drew opposition from those homeowners.

Mr. Morrow also said Tuesday that he had spoken to the 
owners of La Parmigiana restaurant in Southampton 
Village, and they had expressed an interest into adding a 
restaurant in the new center to complement the existing 
family-owned restaurant in the village.

The hostility to Mr. Morrow’s initial proposal from members of the community, organized in large part by a coalition of Southampton Village business
owners, eroded support for the project among Town Board members, most notably Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, who had initially supported the project. After seeing the new plans last week, Ms. Throne-Holst applauded the changes but said the future of the project still rests with the reaction of residents.

“I think Mr. Morrow’s substantially revised plans certainly reflect his understanding that the community does not want a project of the scale he originally proposed. I’m pleased at his willingness to really listen and respond to resident concerns. Most important, though, is what community members think of the new proposal,” said Ms. Throne-Holst.

Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley said that he would not expect the village to be as stridently against the new proposal as it was Tuckahoe Main Street. He also acknowledged that there does seem to be a need for another grocery store. He said he had spoken with the Pikes and Mr. Nill about the project, but not Mr. Morrow.

“I told them they probably can’t ever expect the village to support them,” Mr. Epley said. “But it’s better than it was.”