(Al Alexsa)
The ShopRite plaza in New Paltz will soon be getting a new tenant, a branch of the statewide medical specialty group CareMount. Plaza representative John Joseph received approval for the necessary work at the New Paltz Town Planning Board meeting of April 22. That approval came in the form of amending the site plan to put in new windows, and extend the facade, around the eastern end of the building.
CareMount Medical is a physician-owned multi-specialty medical group which provides medical care, laboratory and radiological services in and immediately northward of New York City, stretching as far as Columbia County for coverage. According to the group’s own press, it’s the largest of its kind in the state. Services offered through the company include coordination of Medicare, patient portal including virtual visits and access to a wide variety of specialists in the same location. Some CareMount facilities are urgent care centers, but there’s no indication that’s what’s planned for the New Paltz location.
This is the latest in a series of steps intended to revitalize the ShopRite plaza. The controversial parking lot redesign was a required prerequisite to amending the site plan. That work, intended to bring the lot up to current safety standards, is still brought up by locals without prompting because the new configuration remains unpopular. It’s yet to be seen if any plans to update ShopRite itself will be brought to a Planning Board meeting.
What the planning board also neglected was the piles of mulch thrown up against all the trees, which, because they have no hollowed-out-ring, will bring bark rot and kill the trees, as well as neglecting the vines climbing all throughout the fir trees behind the Sunoco station, which too, will overtake the a living arbor and kill it as well?
The Sunoco station and the Shoprite Plaza have different landscapers, but both should be contacted by the Shade Tree Commission.
Trees over by Tops have the takeover-vines as well.
“Modern safety standards” for parking lots stink.
New Paltz is a funny place. We’ve got a university with lots of supposed brain power. We’ve got passionate
residents whom you’d think would understand what is best for the town. We’ve got an amazing resource-filled natural region surrounding us. We’ve got direct access into the largest city and metro region in North America.
Yet for all of this, I marvel at how small-minded, narrow, and complicated so many people here make basic things become.
Shop Rite Plaza – and all of the swirl around it – is a prime example.
The “controversial” parking long design is actually a big improvement, planting trees despite like or dislike
of mulch, a good move as it creates habitat, will grow to bring shade to the worst kind of parking man ever
invented with it’s massive heat absorbing, runoff deluging slab of hot black surface area. We obsess over something like that, while he work hard to kill smart developments like Zero Place and the newly built, vacant, and unfinished business down on Main Street.
We allow horribly outdated, unkempt, and environmentally ignorant apartment housing and old commercial building s tock to thrive, with it’s grafiti, horrible yellow paint, unpainted, dirty, grease smeared exteriors, and ‘for sale’ yards filled with ‘stuff’ that violates all of our good-intention zoning rules…but we won’t bring to town
brand new construction, that is far more energy efficient, and we won’t build new housing or replace the old 1950s apartment complexes with newer, better designed, more attractive, and more efficient housing. We won’t replace our dismal crumbling bus station with a brand new one on the same site that could be beautirully
designed, actually have a smaller footprint as a building and be re-oriented so the taxi parking and bus drop offs happen behind it, with direct pedestrian access into a bus station directly facing the sidewalk on Main Street.
We say we want to have strict rules for new things while we literally turn a blind eye to all of the old (not historic) just old, 1950s and 1960s crumbling housing and commercial stock in town.
And this is reflected in Stop & Shop and all of the debate.
A town with a vision, and a populace that understands that vision would have seen the following happen with Stop & Shop:
The retail wing attached to Stop & Shop would have been torn down. The surface parking would have been shifted back to that footprint. A completely new retail/office wing would have been built closer to Main Street frontage in an L-shape that runs behind Sunoco and turns toward Main. Trees would still have been planted, the parking in front of Stop & Shop would have been reduced by one or two rows with the new replacement parking on the old retail footprint. A new single commercial building (for example a Chase Bank or a CVS) would have been built on the footprint in front of Stop & Shop, also facning Main Street.
Moving all of the retail to the Main STreet frontage, with the exception of Stop & Shop which would have
remained exactly where it is would have achived multiple desirable outcomes.
First: New building stock replacing outdated and ugly building stock.
Second: Massive surface parking would be out of view from Main Street, this improves the overall street scape and turns a suburban-style plaza into a downtown style plaza.
Third: The new buidling could have housed a restaurant with outdoor seating, other small new businesses with good landscaping and a walkable sidewalk encouraging people to spend more time, not just hop in and out of their cars.
Fourth: This Main Street frontage building would close what planners call a ‘tooth gap’ which is generally known as an un-friendly pedestrian right of way that is dominated by cars and parking.
New Paltz needs to look around, outside of NY STate and see how similar towns and small cities are dealing
with redeveloping existing old commercial, office, and residential stock. I travel the US and I marvel at how well similar sized, and larger communities are getting rid of the outdated (not historic), filling in with better designed, more attractive, and yes denser development that eliminates sprawl, gets people out of the car, and makes for a far superior community experience.
Wishing we could use our smart minds and actually be smart about what we do here.
Lastly, it’s good that the new Carmeont is moving in because it will at least improve the plaza a bit, and will put professional use into that ugly, abandoned space. I do with the developer-owners of the plaza would take it upon themselves to re-build the exterior in a style that is more suitable with New Paltz’s supposed strick rules for how things look.
Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.