Cortlandt Town Center Owners Set Sights Across Street
The owners of the Cortlandt Town Center discussed preliminary plans with town officials last week for a 36-acre site they recently purchased across the street.
While no specific project was outlined, Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi said Acadia Realty representatives are not interested in constructing a big box store, such as the 160,000-square-foot Walmart Supercenter that was being sought by former property owners Westrock Development.
Instead, Puglisi told fellow Town Board members Acadia mentioned several smaller stores with two potential anchors during their third informal meeting with her, Town Attorney Thomas Wood, Town Comptroller Glenn Cestaro and Planning Director Chris Kehoe.
“They’re not interested in one big box store, which was pleasing to me. Nothing as grandiose as was being asked for before,” Puglisi said. “I tried to emphasize that you have a great opportunity to make this an exciting shopping experience and make it pretty, so they’re considering it.”
The property is split zoned, with 26.5 acres in the rear zoned residential and 9.5 acres zoned commercial. Acadia can currently make an application for 95,000 square feet of commercial development, but anything larger would require rezoning approval from the Town Board. Westrock never officially made a rezoning request, but the majority of the Town Board publicly stated they were not in favor of the Walmart Supercenter, which led to Westrock selling the land to Acadia.
David Steinmetz, former legal counsel for Westrock who has been retained by Acadia, said plans for the site are still conceptual.
“Acadia has purchased the property with a goal of redeveloping it in a cooperative fashion with the town,” he said. “Acadia believes this will generate positive synergy with the Cortlandt Town Center and will facilitate improvements that will benefit the Route 6 neighborhood and the community at large.”
Puglisi said she presented Acadia with a list of about 15 stores and restaurants that residents have frequently asked for, such as The Christmas Shoppe and Trader Joe’s, along with suggestions for a hotel and a trolley that could transport shoppers from the site to the Town Center.
“It’s private property. We can’t mandate a store. We can strongly recommend,” Puglisi said. “I’m keeping an open mind.”
Councilman Richard Becker said he would take the same approach. “They have to come up with a project and then we’ll react. I’d love them to come in with something different,” he said.
“I don’t think different is in their vocabulary,” Councilman Frank Farrell remarked. “It will be essentially the same thing as across the street.”
Acadia may present a more detailed plan to the Town Board at an October 15 work session.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
