Chain reaction
Along Armonk”™s thriving Main Street, owners of mom-and-pop shops have hung yellow protest signs on their storefronts this spring. They oppose a real estate deal that could leave the hamlet”™s business district without a supermarket by early next year, though a local developer says he has a better and novel site for a grocery ”“ and an apparently unpopular one ”“ should that deal go through.
“No CVS,” the storefront signs read. The same message is borne in the slogan heard from Armonk merchants and landlords: “Main Street, not Chain Street.”
CVS Caremark Corp., the Rhode Island-based retail pharmacy chain, has signed a long-term lease with Werber Management Inc., the Queens-based owner of 450 Main St., a 50-year-old building whose long-time tenant is Armonk”™s A&P food store. The announcement in April that A&P Fresh ”“ whose parent company last December filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection ”“ will be replaced by a CVS pharmacy has sparked weeks of petition-signings, finger-pointing and accusations chiefly directed at town of North Castle officials for allowing the lease deal to proceed and for delaying action on Werber”™s previous plans to expand the A&P store. This has resulted in fast-spreading rumors, anger and worry among business owners concerned about the potential threat the national chain poses to their small-town Main Street.
“They”™ll impact everyone,” said pharmacist Abe Rutman, co-owner of Town Center Pharmacy at 575 Main St., Armonk”™s sole drug store. “We don”™t need more vacant stores on Main Street. There are a number of them.”
Though he cannot precisely predict its impact on his 11-year-old business, Rutman said, “It”™s certainly not going to be beneficial to have it in town because there”™s a limited number of people in Armonk” needing prescriptions filled.
“The people in this town are accustomed to patronizing the local storekeepers,” said Rutman. “That”™s how this town has thrived.”
About 1,500 residents of North Castle and Armonk have signed a petition opposing the CVS store and supporting the A&P or another supermarket in its place. Barbara DiGiacinto, a spearhead of the petition drive whose family owns several commercial Main Street properties, also has led a community letter-writing campaign directed at CVS CEO Larry Merlot and Martin Werber, a principal of Werber Management. The writers are threatening to boycott the CVS store if it opens in Armonk.
CVS plans to move on its site
Martin Werber said his family”™s Elmhurst company has owned the A&P property in Armonk since 1984. In 2007, the landlord presented supermarket expansion plans to North Castle officials.
“Basically, they kept whittling away at the project,” Werber said of town officials. The project finally collapsed a year ago over parking-space requirements. “After spending more than three years and constantly being rejected, we saw the town was not of one mind and we withdrew,” he said.
Werber said the landlord pursued other national supermarkets in better financial shape than A&P as a tenant. “None of them wanted a store that small,” he said.
“As far as we”™re concerned, a CVS coming to town will destroy Main Street,” said DiGiacinto. “We”™re not going to support a business that destroys Main Street.”
Judy Gilmartin-Willsey, founder of the Armonk Chamber of Commerce, has hung a yellow sign on the door of her framing shop at 420 Main St. “If CVS opens in this town, I and hundreds of concerned citizens in this town will boycott the CVS,” she said. “We will make it very, very unpleasant.”
At CVS headquarters in Woonsocket, R.I., company spokesman Mike DeAngelis said CVS still plans to move into the 17,500-square-foot space in Armonk in the first quarter of 2012.
“We are certainly aware that some people in the community are upset that the A&P is leaving,” said DeAngelis, adding that CVS signed the deal after Werber Management decided not to renew the A&P lease. He said company officials will continue to have discussions with property owners and the town board about “possible solutions to the concerns.”
One solution, he suggested, could be an expanded grocery and consumables section in the CVS store.
Despite the local opposition, “Nothing has changed in our plans to open a store early next year,” DeAngelis said. “We are committed to that.”
”˜We”™ve been unable to rent it”™
For Armonk developer Michael Fareri, the supermarket closing on Main Street could open the way for his proposal to convert a vacant 24,000-square-foot office building to a supermarket in the nearby Westchester Business Park, across Route 22 from the hamlet”™s business district. The space was vacated a few years ago by the dental products manufacturer Heraeus Kulzer Inc.
Five years ago, Fareri said, a rear 45,000-square-foot addition to his 99 Business Park Drive property was converted to The Gym, a popular fitness center. At 90 Business Park Drive, a Long Island developer, The Engel Burman Group, is seeking town approval of another new use for the office park, a 105,000-square-foot assisted-living facility to be built on an undeveloped parcel there. Fareri said the park also is well-suited to accommodate a supermarket and its delivery-truck traffic.
In Westchester”™s stagnant commercial office market, “We”™ve been unable to rent it” as office space, Fareri said of his building. “There”™s a huge amount of vacancy existing in the business park.”
Fareri said he has negotiated a lease for the site with DeCicco Family Markets. Three to four other grocers have since expressed interest in opening there, he said. “Until I have an approval from the town, I have nothing to lease,” he said.
Fareri said he applied to the town 18 months ago for a special use permit for the supermarket. “The town has been unwilling to process my application in a fair and reasonable amount of time,” he said.
He said he has put his project on hold until he is assured “that CVS is going through ”¦ If the CVs is done, I think I”™ll have less resistance. Right now, I think there are people who would rather see the market where it is.”
Along Main Street, Fareri, a 40-year Armonk resident, and his office-park supermarket project clearly are not popular with business and property owners opposing the CVS deal.
“It is inappropriate to have a supermarket in a business park,” said DiGiacinto, “and it would definitely take away from the existing Main Street businesses.”
“I think it”™s wonderful for Mike Fareri,” Rutman said. “Do I think it”™s good for anyone but Mike Fareri? Absolutely not.”
A supermarket on Business Park Drive? “It will never happen,” another shop owner said.