The Dalewood Shopping Center, which has three sections, I, II, and III, on N. Central Avenue in Hartsdale, soon will be host to a new Best Buy store and Sprouts Farmers Market, pending approvals of plans by the Greenburgh Town Board. Manhattan-based Brixmor, which owns and operates about 360 retail centers nationwide, has submitted plans to Greenburgh that involve renovation of Dalewood Shopping Center II and III at 353-371 N. Central Ave. and 401-425 N. Central Ave.
A Best Buy store at 299 N. Central Ave. had closed on May 3 of this year.
The Greenburgh Planning Board has started its review of the plans. It may be able to make a recommendation to the Town Board regarding the plans after it discusses them again at its scheduled meeting on Sept. 29.
Brixmor says that Dalewood is the fifth most visited neighborhood shopping center in New York with an estimated 5.1 million annual visits according to 2024 statistics from the analytics company Placer.ai.
According to Langan Engineering, which has an office in White Plains, the proposed work includes interior and exterior building renovations, the addition of a rear loading dock and parking lot improvements. A key feature of the plan is to divide the space that formerly housed the Christmas Tree Shop into two new retail spaces, one for the food market Sprouts Farmers Market and the other for the electronics retailer Best Buy. The Christmas Tree Shop closed about two years ago.
Sprouts would occupy 20,620 square feet and Best Buy would be in 18,579 square feet of space. The retail spaces are in the Dalewood II section, while the parking lot improvements involve Dalewood II as well as a section of the Dalewood III parking lot.
The revised parking configuration as presented shows Dalewood II would add three parking spaces for a total of 446 spaces. The number of spaces at Dalewood III would be unchanged, but the layout would be modified. Dalewood II has approximately 8.55 acres of land while Dalewood III covers 4.57 acres. The number of parking spaces could change depending comments from the town.
Changes to the parking configurations would be made in order to improve shopper access to the new stores, provide a number of areas for the return of food market shopping carts, and improve the flow of vehicles and pedestrians in the parking areas. Landscaping would be added including new trees.
Chuck Utschig of Langan Engineering told the Planning Board, “They (Brixmor) have finally been able to find two good tenants that will help maintain the viability of the center. They will occupy the existing space of 40,000-square-feet plus. There’s no increase in building coverage. The use, as a retail use, is consistent with what the prior use was. I think the only exterior modification that you may call structural is the addition of a loading dock in the back.”
Utschig said that part of reconfiguring the parking lot layout involves moving handicapped spaces closer to the buildings.
“On any given day other than the day before Easter, the week before Christmas, half of the parking spaces are empty,” Utschig said “We have plenty of spaces in front of each of these uses to accommodate that specific use. (On) the busiest day of the year for shopping this center potentially could be very full, there’s no question about that.”
