Modell’s scales down plans to win OK for Mount Kisco store

A smaller Modell’s Sporting Goods store proposed for this former Borders Books & Music location in downtown Mount Kisco is expected to be approved by village planning officials. Photo by Evan Fallor

A Modell”™s Sporting Goods store is slated to open on a downtown Main Street corner in Mount Kisco after village planning officials tentatively approved scaled-down plans for the vacant property at their Nov. 10 meeting.

Initially proposed as a 16,700-square-foot operation in a 22,600-square-foot building at 154-162 E. Main St. last occupied by Borders Books and Music, the planned Modell”™s store was downsized to 12,800 square feet in response to concerns previously voiced by village planning board members, said Douglas Epstein, vice president of real estate and general counsel for Modell”™s Sporting Goods. A window signage agreement was also reached between Modell”™s and the planning board the would make the store”™s interior visible. Concerns had previously been raised over the amount of promotional signage at the store.

Epstein said the board could formally approve the revised plans on Nov. 24, after which the developer hopses to obtan a building permit by the end of December and open the Modell”™s store by next spring.

“We listened to the concerns of the board and we modified our configuration to meet those concerns,” said Epstein, who declined to give the store”™s construction cost. “We were pleased with the response from the planning board. We look forward to being a member of the Mount Kisco community.”

Planning board officials at their Oct. 13 meeting expressed concern over the introduction of a big box store at the former Borders location, which was vacated in 2011 after the Michigan-based bookstore chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The site is flanked by Bow Tie Mount Kisco Cinemas in a downtown retail area of small businesses that include a spa, hair stylist, jeweler and a Greek restaurant.

The property is co-owned by Stephen Lerner, founder of Lerner Properties, a  commercial real estate firm in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and his cousin Richard Grobman, president of Dan”™s Supreme Supermarkets Inc., a metropolitan grocery chain headquartered on Long Island, who together hold a 50 percent stake, and Modell”™s. Lerner Properties owns Central Plaza at 2550 Central Ave. in Yonkers, which houses a Modell”™s store.

The companies acquired the space in July from Miami Beach-based Kisco Retail LLC for $6.3 million.

The developers were required to apply for a special use permit because the village”™s zoning code limits the size of commercial stores to 8,000 square feet. Epstein said the Mount Kisco location will be roughly 3,000 square feet smaller than the typical Modell”™s store.

Cathy Deutsch, owner of Tiger Lily Boutique at 139 Main St. across from the proposed Modell”™s site, said the sporting goods retailer would boost business for both downtown shops and restaurants and reconnect what she called a village downtown geographically divided between Main Street and Moger Avenue.

“Main Street has been in a depression of sorts with vacancies and that”™s because of a gaping hole in the middle of town,” Deutsch said, referring to the former Borders site.  “It had its front teeth knocked out. This will create an upswing in consumers. It”™s great.”

Deutsch, whose store is part of the village”™s Main Street Merchants Association, disagreed with planning board members”™ views that the Modell”™s would be a “boxy” location, instead calling the New York City-based, family-owned sporting goods store a “mom and pop gone big.”

Modell”™s currently has six Westchester stores – in Yonkers, Pelham Manor, New Rochelle, Greenburgh, Port Chester and Mohegan Lake.

Jonathan Gordon, a retail broker and president and CEO of Admiral Real Estate Services Corp. in Bronxville, told the Business Journal in September that he believed the Modell”™s would help to revitalize the village”™s downtown and bring in more foot traffic.

Statistics compiled by his firm show that Mount Kisco currently has an 8.4 percent commercial vacancy rate, a figure that has risen more than 4 percent in the last five years.

Rob Bernstein, co-owner of Mount Kisco Sports, a family-owned sporting goods store on South Moger Avenue, one-third of a mile from the proposed Modell”™s location, has been a vocal critic of the Modell”™s plan. He declined a phone interview with the Business Journal.

Mount Kisco”™s commercial sector, though largely a collection of small and independent businesses, also houses Target, Gap, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic and TJ Maxx stores.