Costco Could Come to Yorktown By Fall 2013
The team behind the Costco planned for Route 202 in Yorktown told the Yorktown Chamber of Commerce they were “cautiously optimistic” the superstore could be open as early as fall 2013.
Speaking to a crowd of about 25 at the chamber’s Friday business development meeting, the group outlined parking capabilities, construction efforts and their plans to work around wetlands on the site.
Developer Al Capellini said the tax revenue that will come in from the site is “sevenfold” what the four properties currently on the 18.75-acre lot bring in.
In addition to eliminating “a blight condition” on the site, the project will also create 350 temporary construction jobs and 200 permanent jobs, said Nickitas Panayotou, the land development principal at TRC Solutions in Hawthorne, which is advising on the project.
The Costco is expected to bring in about $600,000 in annual school taxes and about $90,000 in annual property taxes to the town of Yorktown and about $9 million in sales tax to Westchester County.
Capellini said he’s glad something’s finally being developed on such a prime piece of Yorktown real estate — and he’s even happier that it’s an “extraordinary” retailer like Costco.
“Probably it is the jewel in the crown of the town of Yorktown in terms of a commercial site,” Capellini said. “The use that goes there has to be something different, has to be something out of the ordinary. Why does Yorktown always have to settle for the ordinary?”
The planned Costco will also include a gas station that’s open to store members only. The 161,000-square-foot site’s parking lot is set to include 610 spaces and will abut the wetlands buffer on the site but not infringe upon it.
Yorktown Chamber of Commerce President Joseph Visconti said he sees the project as crucial to the town’s economic development.
He said he wants to ensure Yorktown doesn’t let it slip away, as he feels happened with the Cortlandt Town Center.
“I think that this goes far beyond Costco,” he said. “The people that are opposed to Costco are not only opposed to this, they’re opposed to everything. I can’t understand for the life of me why anyone would be opposed to this.”
Visconti said he sees the Costco proposal as “the gateway to the 202 development project.”
According to the developers, about $1.7 billion annually in purchasing power is leaking out of “the Yorktown market structure.” They said they hope the addition of Costco will be able to redirect those funds back to the town.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
