New Haven Independent

The neighbors expressed their outstanding concerns at a Board of Zoning Appeals meeting Tuesday night.

They have been keeping an eye on plans to renovate the notoriously junk-ridden Walgreen’s property. Last month, a proposal came through the BZA to demolish the current Walgreen’s and neighboring dollar store, which stand at the corner of Whalley and Ella Grasso Boulevard, and build a new pharmacy with a drive-thru and parking in front. Walgreen’s wanted to lop down trees and put dumpsters facing Ellsworth Avenue.

Residents protested. They were already angry about trash build-up and junked cars left in the parking lot. A neighborhood group, the Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hill (WEB) Management Team, sat down with developer Mark Steinberg, and negotiated.

To their pleasant surprise, it worked: Steinberg agreed to leave the trees standing and turn the building 90 degrees so Ellsworth Avenue residents didn’t have to stare at Walgreen’s’ trash. Steinberg and architect Rob Novak (both pictured below) brought new drawings Tuesday.

WEB members were pleased, in part. But they still don’t think the corporate look fits the neighborhood. They say the plan, in which the storefront is set back from the street by two rows of parking, better fits a car-dominated suburban neighborhood — not Whalley, where many customers still walk. “We are a city block and we would prefer that cars are not parking right up to the street as they would in the suburban stores,” said Francine Caplan (pictured) Tuesday.

A half-dozen other residents showed up to support her statement.

“We would like to diminish the parking-lot sprawl,” said Peaches Quinn, milling in the hallway before the meeting. Bob Caplan remembered the days when the building was a neighborhood supermarket called Pegnataro’s. People used to walk there, he said. The people who ran it didn’t let junk pile up in the lot.

“The people who operate the store, Walgreen’s, have had a terrible history” of poor property management, BZA member Chris Vigilante agreed. Even recently, as the store struggles to gain city approval, garbage is still piling up, he said.

Steinberg pointed the finger at the “absent” owners, New Haven Surplus, LLC, whom Walgreen’s leases from. Under a new contract in the new building, Walgreen’s — not the phantom landlords — would be responsible for maintaining the grounds.