Plaza South Developers Seek Much Smaller Retail Complex

By Andrew Gorosko

The developers of Plaza South, a shopping center planned for 266 South Main Street in Botsford, have scaled down their commercial plans and are now seeking town approvals for a much smaller retail complex than was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) in August 2006.

The property has undergone some site development, with the positioning of towering piles of earthen materials there. No buildings have yet been constructed at the 12.35-acre location. The planned entrance to the site lies across South Main Street from Button Shop Road.

The property lies north of South Main Street’s intersection with Cold Spring Road and south of Sand Hill Plaza. The land is in a (M-6) Industrial zone. It is the site of a former sand-and-gravel mine.

The planned project has undergone a variety of design changes during the past several years, with the most recent version of it approved by the P&Z in August 2006. In that version, the P&Z endorsed a 68,000-square-foot retail center, including four buildings. 

The developers are now seeking to scale down the project to a 24,500-square-foot complex. A P&Z public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for April 2.

In a March 4 letter to P&Z Chairman Lilla Dean, engineer Michael Lillis, of CCA, LLC, representing Plaza South, LLC, writes that the developers want the P&Z to modify their special permit to allow them to construct a much smaller retail project.

The current proposal would allow three buildings to be constructed on the site, and also would preserve the applicants’ ability to further modify construction plans for the site in the future.

“Our clients have drastically reduced the initial scope of their project due to difficulty in securing [Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection] approvals for a wastewater treatment plant, and the business downturn in general,” Mr Lillis wrote.

The currently proposed three buildings for the southern end of the site would accommodate known tenants for the property, he added.

Future plans would include dividing the property to allow the northern section of the site to be developed by another business entity or owner, he wrote.

In the future, the developers would seek to divide the property through the Special Design District (SDD) provisions of the South Main Village Design District (SMVDD) zoning regulations, Mr Lillis added.

At a meeting earlier this month, P&Z Chairman Lilla Dean said that the proposal for a much smaller shopping center would result in the town health department having review powers over a smaller proposed septic waste disposal system there, rather than the DEP having jurisdiction over septic waste disposal.

The site is in the town’s Aquifer Protection District (APD), an environmentally sensitive area lying above the Pootatuck Aquifer.

According to information submitted to the P&Z by the applicants, the three proposed buildings would hold businesses including The Learning Experience Pre-School and Day Care, also an unspecified bank, plus store and restaurant space.

In April 2005, the Plaza South developers had received initial P&Z approvals for a two-building shopping center in the form of a 64,000-square-foot building intended for several relatively large tenants, plus a separate 4,000-square-foot bank.

But that complex never materialized, and the developer later submitted revised plans for P&Z review, which the agency approved in August 2006. That proposed 68,000-square-foot complex included four buildings.

While under P&Z review in the past, the Plaza South proposal had proven controversial, with nearby residents closely monitoring the various aspects of the site’s design to ensure that it would not damage their quality of life.

Under the shopping center’s development plans, the intersection of Plaza South’s driveway with South Main Street and Button Shop Road would be controlled by a new four-way traffic signal.

The adjacent approximately 160,000-square-foot Sand Hill Plaza, which has been in operation for almost 20 years, has a Super Stop & Shop supermarket as its prime tenant.

In early 2004, the Plaza South applicants had sought to revise the zoning regulations regarding maximum store sizes in order to allow individual stores within shopping centers to occupy up to 60,000 square feet of floor space.

P&Z members, however, rejected that request, letting stand an existing 40,000-square-foot size limit on individual stores within shopping centers. P&Z members had approved that 40,000-square-foot size limit in 1996, a move that has deterred large-store retailers from seeking local facilities.