Citing parking concerns, city planners voted to deny recommending a plan to open a Save-A-Lot grocery store on Whalley Avenue.
The grocery store plan was part of a contentious meeting last week at the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA), which referred the matter to the City Plan Commission.
The City Plan commissioners were asked on Wednesday night to consider allowing the Save-A-Lot to have fewer parking spots than zoning requirements currently allow.
They called that a bad idea, and voted unanimously to recommend the BZA deny the grocery store proposal. The zoning board will now vote on the item at its February meeting.
The Save-A-Lot is planned for the former site of the Staples store (pictured) at 84 Whalley Ave. The grocery store’s proposed location, less than a block from Whalley’s Shaw’s supermarket, has met with opposition from neighbors. They say they worry the new store would put Shaw’s out of business.
On Wednesday night, City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg told commissioners that her department found that a Save-A-Lot would likely require more parking spaces than Staples had. The grocery store would have longer hours. More cars and trucks would come in and out of its one vehicle entrance point, she said.
“The configuration seems terrible,” said commission Chair Ed Mattison. “It’s hard to see how we can reduce parking when the use will be more intense.”
Anthony Avallone (pictured), the local attorney helping Save-A-Lot seek zoning relief, said he has no plans to withdraw the application after the City Plan Commission’s vote.
“That’s a recommendation they make to the BZA,” he said of the the vote. “I’ll leave it up to the [zoning] board to decide. They have all the information they need.”
Avallone noted that the city’s department of traffic and parking had looked at the Save-A-Lot proposal and found no problems with it. All it did was recommend putting in a bike rack, he said.
He declined to predict which way the BZA would vote in February.
Let's fight for this:
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<a href="http://www.greatriverroad-illinois.org/MainStreet Galena.JPG" rel="nofollow">http://www.greatriverroad-illinois.org/MainStreet Galena.JPG</a>
and fight against this:
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<a href="http://www.cpmra.muohio.edu/marketstudy/Strip Mall.JPG" rel="nofollow">http://www.cpmra.muohio.edu/marketstudy/Strip Mall.JPG</a>
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<a href="http://www.renparkonline.com/wp-content/gallery/strip-mall-updates/2007-1224-StripMall_001.JPG" rel="nofollow">http://www.renparkonline.com/wp-content/gallery/strip-mall-updates/2007-1224-StripMall_001.JPG</a>
Let's be proactive and not reactive. It is not a good strategy to wait until there are offers, then either reject or accept them, we must go after what we want. There is a lot of money around Whalley, unfortunately nearly all of it goes into the pockets of distance chain store owners who reinvest practically nothing back into the communities that all their wealth comes from. The number of grocery stores is irrelevant, New Haven used to have thousands of locally owned groceries.