Nobody wanted to be responsible for the chemicals dumped into the ground left by the old cleaners that was there, and the print center. Golub sold a large majority of it to the town years ago .. but the cleanup costs were astronomical. It suddenly isn't an issue? Dunno the answer to that one, but it did hamper development options.
I see what you mean. I did some searching on the Daily Gazette's website about the Curry Road Plaza site. Interesting..
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/feb/03/0203_curryrd/ ROTTERDAM — Environmental contamination at the former Curry Road Shopping Center has caused a major snag in plans to redevelop the plaza.
Dan Polito, a principal with Polito-Columbia Properties LLC, said the contamination from a former dry-cleaning business has quashed plans to build 94 two-bedroom condominiums on the roughly 10 acres of town-owned land. He said these issues would cause liabilities that would make the project unfeasible unless the residential component was eliminated.
“We would have loved to do condominiums, because that is what really made the project,” he said recently. “We knew we’d run into too many issues.”
Polito said the environmental concerns could have been corrected with special equipment. But the added cost would have made the project too expensive, especially in a troubled economy.
Polito said his company will go back to the drawing board to design a project that will include only commercial buildings. Such development would face far less scrutiny by the state Department of Environmental Conservation because the people working and using commercial buildings wouldn’t have as much exposure to the property’s contamination as people living on site.
Commercial buildings also tend to have more impervious surfaces. DEC Spokesman Rick Georgeson said fewer fumes would permeate concrete and asphalt than lawn space. “There would have to be a higher level of cleanup for residential,” he said.
During the early 1980s, the 77,000-square-foot plaza supported a Kmart and several other businesses. When Kmart vacated the anchor store spot in 1989, it tried to sublet its space to Price Chopper, while the owners of the plaza attempted to lease the store to Hannaford Brothers. The companies engaged in legal sparring for more than five years until Price Chopper bought the property outright in 1996.
The Golub Corp., Price Chopper’s parent company, initially discussed moving offices to the plaza but faced difficulties during the planning process because of the property’s location on Curry Road. Instead, the badly deteriorated plaza remained largely vacant for nearly a decade until 2003, when Golub donated it to the town to establish a new government center.
But the town instead decided to offer the property for private development. Golub wasn’t opposed to the change of focus, but stipulated the property couldn’t be redeveloped by a competing grocer.
In April 2007, the town issued a request for proposals, including the issues affecting any project there, to about 80 companies. Although six companies responded, only three pitched redevelopment plans, including the Polito-Columbia proposal.
Among the three submitted proposals, only one included a plan that would use the property solely for commercial development. The Town Board selected the Polito-Columbia proposal in August 2007, when it agreed to allow Supervisor Steve Tommasone to negotiate a sale of the property with the developer.
Tommasone was dismayed the residential component of the project wouldn't work out. He said the town will allow Polito-Columbia to rework its plan, but would like to move forward on redeveloping the property this year.
“If they're still interested in doing something on the property … we’ll look at that,” he said Monday. “If we can't come to an agreement in short order, I’d consider asking the Town Board to reconsider some of the other proposals.”
Polito said the company has no timetable for producing a new plan for the property, and the state of the economy may further stall redevelopment efforts.
“We’re still trying to put something together there,” he said.
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