Date: Fri 22-Dec-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

Queen-St-shopping-Center-Big-Y

Full Text:

Kasper Files Development Plans For Queen Street

B Y A NDREW G OROSKO

Joseph Kasper of The Kasper Group, Inc, has submitted site development plans

to the town for the expansion and modernization of Newtown Shopping Center,

including plans for the construction of a Big Y World Class Market. The plans

call for the demolition of a significant portion of the current main building

on the site and the construction of new retail spaces.

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) is scheduled to consider Mr Kasper's

proposed changes for the center at its January 4 meeting at 8 pm in Town Hall

South. The Borough Zoning Commission is referring the proposal to the P&Z for

its recommendations. Because the borough doesn't have its own planning

commission, the P&Z acts as the borough's planning agency.

Mr Kasper will be seeking a special exception to the borough zoning

regulations to build the project. The proposal also will be subject to review

by the town's health, engineering and building departments, as well as the

Conservation Commission.

Newtown Shopping Center, which formerly was known as Wheeler Shopping Center,

has been a red-brick fixture on Queen Street for decades. The shopping center

lost its main tenant, the A&P Supermarket, several years ago. Two of the

shopping center's major tenants, Newtown Hardware and Drug Center relocated to

a new building on Church Hill Road in September. A new package store opened in

the shopping center earlier this year.

Mr Kasper is expected to submit a traffic study to the town indicating the

effect an expanded shopping center would have on local traffic patterns. The

plans call for 569 parking spaces. It's expected that a traffic signal would

be needed on Queen Street at the four-way stop signs near the building that

formerly housed the post office.

The site plans for the shopping center call for an entryway and exitway on

Church Hill Road, just to the west of the building which formerly housed

Oberg's Texaco Service Station.

The application submitted to the town by Mr Kasper indicates that the main

building on the site would be partially demolished. Only the section of that

building which formerly housed the A&P and now houses the Newtown Copy and

Graphic Center would remain standing.

The main building now encloses 31,593 square feet of space. It would be

reduced in size to 11,490 square feet by the demolition work. Some 25,527

square feet of new construction containing 10 brick-faced retail spaces would

be added to the north side of the building, extending it toward Church Hill

Road.

A 56,346-square-foot Big Y supermarket would be built in the area lying to the

west of the demolished section of the main building and to the south of land

owned by Trinity Episcopal Church.

The building on the southerly end of the shopping center which houses Yankee

Spirits would remain standing, as would the building which formerly housed the

post office as well as the Shawmut Bank building.

If all the changes proposed by Mr Kasper are implemented, the total commercial

space at the shopping center would be 114,692 sqaure feet. Sand Hill Plaza, by

comparison, now contains 160,000 square feet of space and has plans to build a

21,450-square-foot addition.

According to information provided by Mr Kasper, 12 properties lie within 100

feet of the boundary of the 15-acre development site and almost 160 properties

lie within 1,000 feet of the site. No change in area property values is

expected to result from the development proposal, according to Mr Kasper.

In a December 15 letter to the Bortough Zoning Commission, Ernest Wiehl, a

general partner of Pepper Partners Limited Partnership, writes that the

partnership endorses Mr Kasper's development plans and is in the process of

entering an agreement for the sale of property it owns at the corner of Church

Hill Road and Queen Street to Mr Kasper. Mr Kasper's development plans call

for the demolition of the former Oberg's Texaco Service Station. Two storage

buildings at the shopping center also would be demolished.

The development plans call for landscaping along Church Hill Road and Queen

Street as well as within the commercial complex. Plantings would include sugar

maples, patmore ash, London plane, honeylocust, white pine and arborvitae, as

well as various other vegetation. A sidewalk network with streetlights would

be built along Church Hill Road and Queen Street.

Big Y Foods, Inc, of Springfield, Mass, which would be the main tenant at the

shopping center, recently signed a lease agreement with Mr Kasper for a new

supermarket. The market Big Y would occupy a supermarket similar to the one it

opened this year on Route 111 in Monroe. A spokeswoman for Big Y has said the

supermarket chain would like to be in Newtown Shopping Center as soon as

possible, hopefully within two years.

The shopping center's ability to discharge wastewater into the municipal sewer

system is viewed as a key element in making the center attractive to

commercial tenants. The town sewer system now under construction is scheduled

to be completed by October 1997.

Big Y Foods is a family owned and operated chain of 35 stores in Massachusetts

and Connecticut.