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Clarkstown Planning Board Reviewed Plans To Upgrade Existing Shoprite Center And Add 103 Residential Units
Updated plans for the redevelopment of the existing Shoprite shopping center on North Main Street in New City were shared with the public on Wednesday at a meeting of the Clarkstown Planning Board.
The major new component of the redevelopment project, which will be renamed New City Center, is a five-story, mixed-use building with 103 residential units and enclosed ground floor parking. The new structure would also contain 8,733 square feet of retail space and about 95,000 square feet of residential space.
The luxury building will include a fitness center and swimming pool. 68 of the units will be one-bedroom; 35 will be two-bedroom units. Ten units are set aside, as required by town code, as affordable.
In an earlier iteration of the plan, the developer proposed a seven-story residential tower with two levels of underground parking and 140 residential units and 126 underground parking spaces. That proposal was scaled back from 160 units, and the current plan is a five-story structure with 103 units. The residential building would be accessed through East Evergreen Road and face Route 304.
“We’ve been before this board for about three years,” said Lino Sciarretta, counsel for the developer, K/BTF New City, LLC of Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. “A lot of good things are happening.”
The developer told the planning board that the plan makes substantial upgrades to the shopping center, including landscaping, lighting, sidewalks, EV chargers and outdoor seating.
But at least a handful of residents, along with planning board members, raised concerns about the increase in traffic. Residents say they are worried about the impacts of the nearly 900 units that are planned along the Main Street corridor in New City.
“Are you only considering this one, and not all the others,” questioned Kathleen Beccarelli, saying the town needs to look at the broader traffic impact, including new housing proposed on the derelict Sain building site on New Hempstead Road. “This is ambitious, it’s too much. Can you tone it down? It’s unfair to the people who live here.”
The proposal also includes a new 4,000 square foot retail building and a 2,258 square foot quick service restaurant with a drive-thru. The addition of a drive-thru restaurant requires a Special Permit from the town. A total of 637 parking spaces is proposed.
The Shoprite and other retail buildings on site will remain, but two residents living in single-family homes on adjacent West Evergreen both spoke about the development’s proximity to their homes and how they would be affected.
Attorney Robert Zitt, representing Ricardo and Celia Fijor, who live at 11 East Evergreen Road, told board members that his client will be adversely impacted by the project’s design, saying that the project’s scale is inconsistent with the Hamlet transitional principles where commercial developments abut residential neighbors.
The project is a Type 1 action under SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) because of its proximity to the historic Rockland County courthouse and Dutch Gardens.
The plan includes the relocation of the main site access further north along Main Street to a new signalized driveway. It also provides improved access and circulation across from New Hempstead Road. Details of the circulation plan were in flux at the Planning Board meeting, with further study and coordination with the town’s traffic expert needed.
The property is located on 13.94 acres of H4 zoned land in Clarkstown’s Hamlet Zone.
In a February 9 letter, the Rockland County Planning Department (RCPD), recommended that “the size and scale of the development be reduced so that additional green infrastructure techniques can be incorporated into the design including vegetated bioswales, protecting more of the 100-year floodplain in the northeast corner, and add landscape islands in parking areas that incorporate the use of native plantings.” The recommendation was made based on the loss of the stream that previously ran through the site, the filling of wetlands on the site, and because the site is in the riparian buffer of the Demarest Kill, which is part of the headwaters to the Hackensack River.
K/BTF New City, LLC acquired the 14-acre property comprised of eight lots in October 2022. The acquisition included the shopping center parcels on North Main Street and 13 and 17 East Evergreen Road in New City. The owners also acquired a property at 12 West Evergreen Road. The plan calls for a merger of the lots as part of the redevelopment.
The redevelopment and inclusion of a residential component was made possible after Town of Clarkstown amended its zoning code in 2023 in the New City Hamlet District. The new zoning is part of the implementation of Clarkstown’s Comprehensive Plan.
The main change was in the H4 district, which encompasses the shopping center properties between Main Street (North and South) and Route 304. The town sought to incentivize denser development by allowing residential and mixed-use projects to supplement or replace existing shopping plazas.
The H4 zone allows 10 residential units per acre and building heights up to 70 feet. Affordable housing incentive can increase allowable density up to 13 units per acre.
The redevelopment project is just one of several proposals for the redevelopment on New City’s downtown corridor.
Other proposals include the redevelopment of Clarkstown Plaza in New City. Clarkstown Plaza is the northern portion of the shopping center on South Main Street in New City at Schreiver Lane. The southern portion, under separate ownership is commonly known as DeCicco’s Plaza, where a proposed redevelopment also includes demolition of existing retail and the addition of a residential tower component.
At Clarkstown Plaza, the town is reviewing a plan that proposed the demolition of the 17,000 square foot tire and auto repair building (along with the pharmacy and former liquor store) at the southeast corner of the property and replacement with a 4-story, 50-unit apartment building with a ground floor indoor parking garage for 50 cars.
To the west of the new residential building, the redevelopment proposal includes construction of a 3,600 square foot commercial building. And, at the far western end of the strip center, the owner is proposing the addition of a two-story, 4,100 square foot retail building (2,050 sf on each floor) that would front on South Main Street.
Additionally, Rockland County is reviewing proposals to redevelop the county-owned Sain Building on New Hempstead Road, which also sits in the Clarkstown Hamlet Zone and would require approvals by Clarkstown’s land use boards. The proposals, in early stages from three different developers, call for demolition of the existing structure, and up to 50 residential units, some commercial space, and open space and/or public amenities.
Just to the west of the Sain Building off Eberling Drive, Clarkstown is reviewing a proposal to cluster seven single-family homes on one of the last large wooded lots in the Hamlet Zone. The homes would be sold at deep discounts to first-time homebuyers earning 80 percent of the 2024 Rockland County HUD median income of $133,400. A family of four can earn up to $124,240 to be eligible.
No action was taken by the planning board. The public hearing will be continued at a later date.
