New Haven Independent

The Whalley/ Edgewood/ Beaver Hills Management Team (WEB) got a glimpse of the future at its monthly meeting, held on Tuesday night at the Edgewood police substation. Marc Steinberg (right in photo) of Mark Investments, Inc. of Manhattan and Rob Novak (at left) of BL Companies of Meriden presented their proposal for a structure to replace the old, outdated Walgreen’s.

Both Steinberg, a developer, and Novak, a project manager, have been hired by the Walgreen’s corporation to design and construct the project, which will occupy 1.8 acres when all is said and done. In the process, nearly all of the block’s existing structures will be razed; the only buildings to be left standing are the apartments at the corner of the Boulevard and Argonne Street and the relatively new Dunkin’ Donuts, which will be incorporated into the new plan via a contiguous parking lot.

About 10 neighbors showed up for the meeting. They seemed generally supportive of the plan. The management team has been working on an upgrading of the avenue in general.

Steinberg has built about 100 stores for the chain. He called the current Whalley store “one of the oldest Walgreen’s” he’s ever seen.

One man’s “vintage” is another man’s eyesore. The neighborhood has been up in arms for years over abandoned vehicles, massive potholes and overflowing dumpsters in the store’s parking lot. A protest was held back in September, which prompted the store to clean up its lot and display pictures of new stores in the windows alongside the promise “Coming Soon!”

But a few days later, the nice pictures were gone, and it was business as usual once again. The cars began to reappear in the lot despite the store’s threats to tow, although the trash problem appears to have been resolved.

With the new construction, said Steinberg, Walgreen’s intends to “make this [location] a centerpiece for what they’re trying to do in this area.” He’s designed the new building to be a “flagship store” incorporating all of his client’s “latest and greatest” design elements.

The proposed exterior features brick and a limestone-like stone facade and green awnings. A series of elevations, architects’ renderings of each of the building’s four sides, show a clean, modern and thoroughly generic project.

The proposed plan also calls for a 4,000-square foot secondary retail structure to be built between the Walgreen’s store and the existing Dunkin’ Donuts. Steinberg said it is important to the property owner, Mitchell Maidman, that additional retail space be created to offset the difference in square footage between the existing store and the proposed plan.

Steinberg pointed out that Walgreen’s has at least 10 years left on its lease, so it has no obligation, legal or otherwise, to upgrade the current building and surrounding property.

Which begs the question: why now? According to Steinberg, Walgreen’s has been looking forward to making these improvements, but Maidman and the other tenants have only recently made it possible for the work to be done. Dollar Haven, which shares Walgreen’s current structure, will close at the end of the year when its lease runs out, and a small stand-alone structure that occupies the Ellsworth/ Whalley corner of the property has only recently been vacated.

The developers next hope to present the proposal at a public hearing in February or March.