Developers looking to construct a Starbucks coffee shop near the Smith Haven Mall in Nesconset took their pleas for variances to the Smithtown Planning Board at a board meeting on Tuesday night.
The proposed location is on the southwest corner of Alexander Avenue and Middle Country Road (State Route 25). The current parcel is an undeveloped, wooded space across Alexander Avenue from Sonic, which proved to be a controversial proposal several years ago. The wooded lot is currently zoned as commercial property.
The location also abuts the Country Point gated community just off Middle Country Road. The development is joined to Route 25 courtesy of Deer Valley Drive. The north side of the intersection currently houses a Firestone garage on the northwest corner and Bahama Breeze – situated within the greater Smith Haven Mall complex – to the northeast.
The law offices of Winston Chamarco, Sr., representing the applicant, petitioned the board for variances for the location concerning its specific dimensions and reworking of the road lanes that would be necessary to accommodate the build. Requests include:
• Reduce the distance of the queue lane from the residential district from fifty feet to twenty-six feet
• Reduce minimum parking setback in the front property line from twenty-five feet to eighteen feet along Alexander Avenue
• Increase the number of ground signs from a maximum of one per parcel to eight.
• Increase the number of wall signs from a maximum of one to six
• Increase the maximum height of a wall sign from fifteen feet to twenty feet
The application was started in February 2022; the applicant has made amendments pursuant to public comments and concerns about traffic and safety. Grace Baymack, (pictured right) representing the law firm on Tuesday, said that such concerns are “understood” by the applicants and the “rights of properties of residents with buffering.”
“The main issue with traffic in this area is most likely rush hour in the morning. I know if I drive past Starbucks and I see eighteen to twenty cars, I’m not stopping. Not because I don’t want coffee, or I don’t want to wait for fifteen minutes,” said Baymack. “Nobody knows this theory better than Starbucks. Starbucks does not want to turn away customers. Starbucks does not want people backed up on the road. Starbucks doesn’t want to turn away customers. Starbucks does not want people backed up on the road. Starbucks doesn’t want to anger the residents in the neighborhood. So Starbucks worked very hard and tried to design, in essence, a control plan to control traffic.”
Since the property abuts a State route, the State Department of Transportation (DOT) is involved in consultation and planning.
Baymack says that the menu boards and design of the drive-thru will give Starbucks employees more time to prepare orders, reducing the queue time and preventing traffic from backing up onto Alexander Avenue.
The only proposed entrance and exit would be off of Alexander Avenue. Dedicated left and right turning lanes would be added on the northbound and southbound corners of the intersection.
For the reduction in the buffer zone from residential properties, Baymack says that the applicants “agree” with the Planning Board to “submit a landscape plan” for this request. Starbucks has also agreed to use the color schemes approved for the Commack and Kings Park locations to fit the existing character of the town. Starbucks has also agreed to put up facade windows facing the residents so they aren’t faced with a blank wall.
Stonefield Engineering and Design is serving as the professional traffic engineering consultant for the applicant. Traffic engineer Nicholas Tortorella represented the firm at the meeting.
The proposed size of the store is approximately 2,500 square feet with a drive-through. Tortorella says that the entrance/exit from Alexander Avenue sits just 230 feet south of the signalized intersection at Middle Country Road.
“This access plan is a result of extensive coordination between our project team, the Town Planning and Traffic Safety Departments, and the New York State Department of Transportation,” said Tortorella, adding that a separate right-in entrance and right-out exit from Middle Country Road was considered but quashed every seven meetings with the Town and the State DOT determined it would impede traffic flow on the corridor.
Such access would also be complicated by the short distance from Country Pointe’s exit before approaching the traffic light at Alexander Avenue.
“the full moving driveway connection to Alexander Avenue at the southern end of our site frontage, located as far as we can possibly put it from the traffic signal at Middle Country Road while still maintaining the sixty-foot buffer to the residential area to the south, is the safest and most efficient way that we can provide access to this project in the future,” said Tortorella.
The proposed northbound left-turn lane would be expanded from thirty-five feet of vehicle storage (while queuing) to 210 feet of queue storage. A dedicated right lane would add 130 feet of queue storage that does not currently exist.
Tortorella also shared that the estimated new vehicle trips generated by the store would be a “maximum” of forty-two trips, with Starbucks-sourced data from their locations across town. On the other hand, 90% of visits to the proposed Starbucks during peak traffic volume would be considered pass-by trips, vehicles already heading past the location who decide to stop in.
One new trip is estimated to be made every ninety seconds.
With the proposed improvements, Tortorella says that the Starbucks is “not expected to significantly or adversely impact traffic operations along Middle Country Road specifically at the intersection of Alexander Avenue.”
Forty-four parking spaces are also proposed, which exceeds the Town’s requirement of twenty-six parking spots. Deliveries would occur during off-peak periods before the store is open for business and the trucks would “likely occupy multiple parking stalls.”
Members of the Planning Board expressed concerns of traffic impacts, lane alignments between the northbound and southbound lanes through the intersection, and the face of the building – which would be a “solid, dark wall” without aesthetic features facing Middle Country Road.
Residents, however, are concerned about added congestion and reduced quality of life for the area. For many in the immediate area, the battle over the Sonic development is still close in the rearview mirror.
“The Town opened up Alexander Avenue to commercial zoning. After it was opened, a little girl who lived at the last house on the block was killed while playing in front of her house by a driver speeding by,” Sharon Silver told The Messenger. Silver has lived on Dover Hill Drive, just around the corner from Sonic and the proposed Starbucks location, for thirty-seven years.
“Now, we have Sonic, Ragazzi, and possibly Starbucks. They [the developers] want to take fourteen feet away from Firestone [for the dedicated southbound right turning lane],” said Silver. “There’s also a conversation about opening up an entrance on Deer Valley Drive into the Starbucks.”
Silver says that her block has become a hotbed of speeding drivers and U-turns to head back into Sonic, as the driveway from Sonic to Alexander Avenue is an exit only and drivers can only make right turns. Still, Silver says that drivers don’t obey that regulation.
“Alexander Avenue is not a commercial street,” Susan Fink, a fifty-six-year resident of Alexander Avenue, told the Planning Board. “The traffic, all these variances to make some signs taller – the number of signs, the placement of signs. Please don’t give the variances to them.”
Fink fears the area will look like “Coney Island” with the lights and signs.
Maureen and Corey Schwartz, residents of Alexander Avenue for fifty-five years, say that the proposal is “excessive.”
“Eight signs, six wall signs, increasing the height. It would be an eyesore and an intrusion and contribute to the decimation of Alexander Avenue. They are attempting to disrupt our family-friendly, peaceful, community-oriented residential street,” said Maureen Schwartz. “Bahama Breeze is available across the street. IHOP [farther north on Alexander Avenue] was suggested. Those are all commercial properties, but Starbucks didn’t take them.”
Schwartz says that the trash from Sonic has been piling up on the streets, in front of homes, and even in mailboxes. She believes that Starbucks will only exacerbate that problem. Additionally, she says that there are already several locations within a five-mile radius, including Mt. Pleasant Road, Hauppauge Road, Main Street, and Smithtown Boulevard.
Donna Natale, a resident of Country Pointe, says that the developers are not “considering” their community of 194 units directly west of the site.
“We have a beautiful entrance into our community with tree lines, and now we’re going to have to break open this row of trees to get a second exit out to accommodate Starbucks? It’s preposterous,” said Natale.
Of traffic concerns, Natale says, “It’s a nightmare waiting to happen.”