Shopping Center Plans Advance in Old Saybrook, Connecticut

OLD SAYBROOK - A new shopping center that will contain the town's second supermarket is slowly closer to a reality.

The Board of Selectmen, at its Dec. 20 meeting, acted on an "Offer to Purchase Agreement" between the town and Max's Place, LLC.

This allows the town to receive $414,000 for selling a portion of the Center Road West cul-de-sac, which will be truncated, so that Big Y World Class Supermarket can build its store.

The price was determined by appraiser Flanagan Associates and approved by Tax Assessor Norm Wood.

Residents in 2005 voted to sell off the approximately seven tenths of an acre parcel to Max's Place for a minimum price of $225,000 on the condition that a grocery store would be built there.

Pace said that the sale is in the public interest since it will provide competition to Super Stop and Shop, currently the town's only grocery store, which is located in the Old Saybrook Shopping Center.

Max's Place received approval from the Zoning Commission in August 2007 to build a 106,749-square-foot shopping center, anchored by Big Y, at the intersection of Spencer Plains Road and Boston Post Road.

The Zoning Commission has indicated at its Dec. 3 meeting that a lawsuit filed by Ralph Gometz against Max's Place reached a settlement.

Ron Lyman, principal partner of Max's Place, said that the timelines for the filing of other appeals has already expired.

Max's Place is awaiting a final septic system approval from the Department of Environmental Protection and traffic signal approval from the State Traffic Commission.

Lyman said off-site improvement work from Center Road West to south of Route 1 has already begun.

"It is mostly off-site drainage and maintenance work such as deferred maintenance like cleaning clogged pipes and swells," Lyman said.

Some of these drainage issues are attributed to a recently discovered damaged underground drainage pipe in the Chalker Beach seawall tidal gate, Pace explained.

Lyman said on-site improvements are expected to begin this spring, a contract will be awarded in May, and then groundbreaking can commence.

The only definitive anchor of the center is the 67,693-square-foot Big Y, which will have its own pharmacy, Lyman said.

The Springfield, Mass.-based supermarket currently has 25 stores in Connecticut and 14 of those have pharmacies while there are 29 Massachusetts stores and, of those, 15 have pharmacies.

As for the rest of the shopping center, plans show a 7,000-square-foot Building "A" and a 7,500-square-foot Building "B", both of which will be built closest to Spencer Plains Road.

Plans had called for a Bed, Bath, and Beyond store to occupy 20,400 square feet of the 24,000-square-foot "Building C" that would be next to Big Y.

However, Lyman said it is possible those plans will fall through since the chain has already committed itself to building a Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Christmas Tree Shoppes combination store in the Crystal Mall in Waterford.

That store will occupy the former Filene's Department Store.

"Their logic was some of the business that would go to the store here would go to Waterford," Lyman said.

When asked what tenants are being sought for the center, Lyman responded he is looking for a mix.

"There are certain tenants we are not looking for, we do not want a pharmacy since Big Y will have one," Lyman said, adding that while he is seeking national retailers, he will consider local ones.

"We want to be the only place in town for a certain type of store," Lyman said, adding that he would like to "fill voids where there is a need rather than create additional competition with existing tenants in town."

The only exception is the Big Y, which is competition many residents are looking forward to seeing, Lyman said.

Specifically, Lyman is hoping to have a men's clothing store in the center and is hoping to avoid having beauty salons, barber shops, fast food restaurants, or cellular phone stores in the center.

Big Y is set to open in April or May 2009 and the shells of the other three shopping center buildings will be completed by then, Lyman said.

Lyman believes that, at that point, all spaces will be leased out and stores in those buildings will either be open or will be preparing to do so.