The latest iteration of a plan to build a CVS store at 3320 Crompond Road in Yorktown Heights was presented to the Yorktown Planning Board last night during a public information hearing.
It was back on April 6, 2015, that the board first heard a proposal for a 12,900-square-foot CVS pharmacy with drive-thru and a second standalone retail building, also with a drive-thru, on the site. The second retail building would have been 3,472 square feet.
When a CVS project at the site was first proposed, the location was considered to be a premier site in Yorktown. It still is because of its proximity to the Taconic State Parkway and popularity with a host of retailers in several retail settings. The site is surrounded by three roads: the main road, Crompond Road, also known as Route 202; Old Crompond Road; and Stony Street. Route 202, a major artery, has been widened in some spots as new retail development has been built. There is a BJ”™s Wholesale Club across the street from the site of the proposed CVS.
When initially presented, the applicant noted that the site was in a flood plain. There also was a wetland on the site. Issues were also raised regarding traffic in the area and the applicant noted that it had started meeting with the New York state Department of Transportation. The board closed the hearing that night and the project subsequently was not sufficiently developed for approval.
On Nov. 5, 2018, the board was presented with a revised conceptual plan that included only one building, which would house the CVS pharmacy. The standalone smaller retail building had been removed from the plan. The board at that time had a generally positive response to the new plan, but advised the applicant that its major concerns would be traffic and landscaping.
At last night’s hearing, the new plan to build a 14,700-square-foot CVS with a drive-thru on 1.96 acres of the 10-acre site in the town”™s C-3 zone was presented to the planning board. Dan Peveraro, an engineer with The Lauro Group, a planning and consulting firm based in Islandia, New York, said that there are two vehicle-access points proposed for the CVS project. Access from Route 202 would only have a right turn in and right turn out, while full access would be from Old Crompond Road.
“We worked with the planning board to really limit the parking spaces down to what”™s necessary and increase green spaces throughout the lot,” Peveraro said. “The drive-thru works with vehicles entering the main parking field, circulating counterclockwise around the building.”
Peveraro said that there is an Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant pedestrian access point off of Crompond Road where people would be able to walk onto the site. “Throughout the parking lot there”™s a lot of trees and landscaping that”™s going to make the site very attractive,” he said.
Phil Greeley of Maser Consulting in Red Bank, New Jersey, prepared the traffic study for CVS. “In the peak hour, through this intersection today, you”™re talking about in excess of 2,600 vehicles per hour. A store like this in that peak hour will generate somewhere in the area of 50 entering and 50 exiting trips new to the system,” he said.
Attorney Lucia Chiocchio of the White Plains-based law firm Cuddy & Feder said that the applicant is committed to making all recommended traffic improvements for the project and would provide an access easement so that its access to Route 202 could be used in any further development taking place on the unused portion of the 10-acre property.
An audience member affiliated with the Hudson Valley Steakhouse located to the north of the proposed CVS site expressed concern that the construction project and completed building might block the view of the restaurant and its sign from Route 202 and hurt restaurant business. When asked whether the building could be moved farther to the east on the site, Peveraro said that it couldn”™t because of the existing wetland and wetland buffer.
John Tegeder, director of planning for Yorktown, suggested that the applicant can prepare architectural renderings and graphics showing what would be seen after the CVS building had been put onto the site. With respect to customers for the restaurant, Chiocchio quipped, “CVS shoppers get very hungry.”
The hearing was kept open and is to be continued at the board’s next meeting.
the proposed CVS is greatly anticipated by the customers of cvs