An opponent of a proposal to build a high-end grocery store in Southampton Village has offered $1.6 million to purchase the property, demolish the existing buildings, re-forest the property and donate it to the Peconic Land Trust—an offer the current owners quickly rejected.
Abraham Wallach has been the most vociferous of the opponents to a proposal by the Southampton Village Board to rezone a section of Hampton Road and County Road 39 to allow a supermarket on a former car dealership property where the two roads intersect. On Tuesday he attempted to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, with his cash offer to the Glennon family, which owns the property.
Mr. Wallach offered the Glennons $1.6 million in cash for the 2-acre property and offered to pay an estimated additional $200,000 to have the buildings demolished, clean up spilled oil from the decades the property was used for auto servicing, and plant a dense thicket of trees. He said he would then turn it over to the Trust for preservation.
Mr. Wallach, who described himself as a developer, also said in an interview on Tuesday that he is spearheading an effort by a group of wealthy local residents to purchase other commercial properties at the village’s main gateways to “beautify” them.
“I will get a tax deduction for the contribution. That is enough for me—I don’t need it but I’ll take it,” Mr. Wallach said. “If I’ve got, maybe, 20 years left, I’m going to spend them doing what I think is right. I have no agenda.”
Regardless of Mr. Wallach’s motives, Walter Glennon, the principal owner of the property, said his family is not interested in his offer. He said the family has received much higher offers for the property but is not interested in selling. He said the intention of the family is to keep the property as a family asset for future generations.
The Glennon family has owned the property since 1955, operating a car dealership there for most of that time. The parcel has been vacant for three years.
Mr. Glennon again defended the proposal that spurred the village’s re-zoning proposal. The Glennons approached the Village Board three years ago to inquire about the options for redeveloping the property—beyond leasing it to a new car dealership, of which several have expressed interest, Mr. Glennon said. The village guided the family to a grocery store use, which requires a change of zone, and Mr. Glennon said the family, knowing nothing about the supermarket business, then spent two years finding a grocer to prepare a proposal. The company they settled on, Fresh Market, is an upscale grocer that opponents of the plan have said would not ease the region’s need for another supermarket.
“[The village] said we need a grocery store,” Mr. Glennon recalled. “Since then, the press has been all about this public opposition, which seems to very tiny and limited to people who have a personal interest or are dead set against any kind of development in the village. It’s disingenuous—they say WalMart will be next. Saying ‘WalMart’ in this town is like crying fire in a crowded theater.”
“Every time you build another shopping experience and pour concrete and asphalt, you are laying the foundation for the death of these special communities,” Mr. Wallach said, nodding to the local economy’s reliance on tourism. “I am not against development—I am a developer myself—but if you continue to disregard sound planning and development criteria, you kill the goose that lays the golden egg.”
27east on Mar 14, 2012