SRD talks design with Planning Board

Although Southern Realty and Development LLC (SRD) did not have a full site plan ready to present to the Planning Board at its meeting on Wednesday, March 6, the applicant behind the proposed 36,000-square-foot supermarket off Route 44 did present some design ideas. It is believed the store will be a Hannaford, though the developer has not confirmed that.SRD principal John Joseph handed in a number of artistic renderings of the proposed store, in summer and winter time and from different angles, because, he said, “I just want to try to orient everybody back to where we were.” That statement came on the heels of the board’s 4-3 approval of a negative declaration following Part 3 of the Environmental Assessment Form (EAF). The EAF is part of the required State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) process the project had to complete in order to move on to the site plan review. Now that it has, the board can talk details with the applicant about design specifics, which was exactly what happened last Wednesday.“Can we get a different sketch from a different architect?” asked Planning Board member Bill Kish, adding he liked the design of the Millbrook High School as an example of what the supermarket should emulate.“It has to be a nonstructural change [to what has already been designed],” replied Joseph.“I’m talking about the main bulk of the building looking like a two-story building, even though it isn’t a two-story building,” Kish said. “Certainly I think this is a big, bulky [design]. That’s kind of why I was thinking of an architect who was a little creative. I don’t want to make it any taller; I just want to add windows.”At Joseph’s hesitancy, Kish continued.“Look, this is not what we’re supposed to be doing,” he said, pointing to the board coming up with solutions to what it called a big-box design. “We’re supposed to be looking at more alternative designs, so I’d like to see more alternative designs.”“We would like to see some choices that you would like to bring in,” added Planning Board member Chip Barrett. “We’re not architects. What we’re trying to do is make it not look like a box, but it is a box.... It could look better than this.”“The consistency [among board members] is that we want to break up the box,” said Planning Board Chairman Dale Culver. “Chip, you’re right, the applicant is supposed to come in with ideas.”The Hannaford in Red Hook was brought into the conversation as an example of what could be done with a large, boxy store. Joseph said that store is “a much bigger building and has a bigger area to play off of.”He also said he would have his architect, Ray Nelson, look into it. Kish was discouraged.“Don’t do that,” Kish said. “We had Ray Nelson as a member of this Planning Board and I have a hard time saying anything positive or negative to him. He’s a member of this community. Bring somebody from the outside.”Planning Board member David Shapiro said he had no problem with Nelson and thought he had done well with other projects in town, like the Salisbury Bank and Trust building.“I think he’s the best man for the job,” Joseph said, adding he was getting no direction, other than to bring more photos in for the board to review.“Well, I’m giving direction, I like the Red Hook store,” Barrett said.“We’re just trying to constructively go down the road in an orderly, constructive fashion,” said Joseph.“This way we’re never going to be done,” said Barrett.“I think this board’s direction is to look at embellishments at what we already have,” said Shapiro. “It’s literally the same building with faux attachments.”“I think I hear from the board we want to see some options and see what comes up and tie it together,” Culver told Joseph.“Yeah,” said Barrett, “because how we’re doing it is backwards.”“We should approve options, not create options,” Culver said.“I think what I have to do is go back to the tenant and say [we need to rework things],” said Joseph.“In all fairness, there are a lot of things about this I like,” Shapiro said. “The beauty is in the dot, dot, dot. But probably you could do something to give it a little more country Millerton-like feel. So if we have the options [it would be better]. And Ray, I’m sure he has the capacity. It’s not rocket science.”“I wouldn’t try to recreate some piece of Millerton relocated over there because it will look out of place,” Kish said. “When you take a very large structure and try to pretend it’s something smaller you can end up with something quite horrible.”Culver suggested Joseph pull from examples of existing supermarkets the applicant and tenant have already developed.“They just have to be non-structural [changes],” Joseph reiterated. “When you start changing the structure it dramatically changes the cost. But I agree with you, it is a big box and we want to dress it up. “Let me chip away at it,” he added. “I’m agreeing with you and think if we can just focus on the front and the side [we’ll come up with a solution].”“I think that was our original idea,” Culver said. “Make it so when you drive up it doesn’t look like a big box. In a nutshell we kind of ended up where we started from.”