By Scott Brinton
Stop & Shop is proposing to expand its downtown supermarket off Hewlett Avenue from roughly 20,000 to nearly 60,000 square feet. The supermarket would not only expand into the old Escapes strip club, but also into a two-story office building just to the south. Fox fears that the supermarket would become a "regional," rather than local, shopping center, attracting customers from throughout the area who would overrun Merrick's downtown shopping district and the surrounding neighborhoods.
In January, Stop & Shop officials went public with plans to increase the supermarket's size to just over 40,000 square feet. But Robert Bencivenga, the New York metropolitan area real-estate director for the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, revealed at a June meeting of the Merrick Park Executive Board that he intended not to double the supermarket's size, but rather to triple it, according to Fox.
The civic leader said he didn't discuss Bencivenga's proposal publicly because it was simply in the talking stage at that point, and he had not seen concrete plans. Last week, the architectural company Stop & Shop hired to draw up plans for the new supermarket, Bohler Engineering, sent Fox revised drawings for the store. Fox provided copies of those plans to the Herald.
"At this point," Fox said, "I don't know what Bencivenga's going to do. A supermarket like this belongs on a major access street, and not in a residential neighborhood and next to" Chatterton Elementary School.
Fox said Bencivenga had appeared open to community input. He held two public meetings, in January and April, which were attended by more than 400 residents. The meetings ran longer than four hours. But Bencivenga never mentioned plans for a store three times Stop & Shop¹s current size.
Fox said he has 78 letters opposing any expansion of the store. But he noted that his organization and residents generally were open to hearing about plans for the 40,000-square-foot supermarket, in large part because the proposal would have moved its truck loading dock away from Hewlett Avenue to the interior of the Merrick Mall, where the old Escapes now sits abandoned. But the new version of the supermarket would return the loading dock to Hewlett Avenue, where trucks now often park the wrong way, causing traffic congestion and hazardous driving conditions across the street from the Merrick Woods development and near Chatterton Elementary School, Fox said.
In all, the new supermarket, if it were to be built in its currently proposed form, would measure 34 feet tall -- three stories.
Additionally, Stop & Shop officials admit that their plans do not include adequate parking for the expanded building, according to Town of Hempstead code. The supermarket would need 596 spaces. It currently has 176, a deficit of 420 spaces, or roughly 70 percent fewer spots than the store would need.
Fox noted that Bohler Engineering is calling the blueprint a "concept plan." It is labeled, however, "Plan A."
Fox wants to meet with Bencivenga, but the civic leader said Bencivenga now refuses to do so. "He says he's not talking to us anymore," Fox said.
Bencivenga could not be reached for comment at press time.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
