Justin Jarboe: proposed grocery store and Winter Place traffic mitigation

The upper floor is developed with a TJ Maxx, a Petco, an Applebee's, a Chipotle, five guys at Starbucks, and several smaller retail outlets, as well as a location for the New York Blood Center.

If you could go to slide 12, please.

So this is an illustrative depiction of the development that would take place to facilitate a new grocery store, which would be located on the upper floor.

It would involve about 10,000 square foot addition on that floor to accommodate a 30,000 square foot grocery store and will involve about a reduction of 49 parking spaces.

However, there's about 800 parking spaces that would remain and would be sufficient to accommodate parking at the shopping center.

I will note that no grocery store operator is identified at this time.

As a specific store will not sign a lease and undertake the large capital investment until the zoning is in place.

I'll also note that no specific store is being replaced or displaced at this time.

When the application commenced, there was a larger party city store that had gone out of business, and that space was identified as a likely location for a supermarket.

However, because of the length of the application, during that time, that space was leased with the New York Blood Center.

So if and when this application is approved, ownership will explore a location within the center for a supermarket, which is most likely the area shown in red on these plans.

In regards to traffic, if you could go back to slide three.

Yeah, it's the aerial.

Just the next slide, please.

Great, thanks.

Before I close, I want to address Winter Place because traffic has been a concern along that roadway.

Neighbors on Winter Place have experienced the use of their street by commercial traffic leaving the center and heading to Brush Avenue due to a mandatory right turn out of Lafayette Avenue.

So we took that concern seriously and engaged in discussions with the Department of Transportation and retained an engineering firm to prepare plans showing the creation of a new left turn out of Lafayette Avenue across an existing traffic island, thereby redirecting traffic away from Winter Place.

However, upon meeting with Bronx DOT, we were advised that a cut through along Lafayette would not be possible because of a proposed safety plan that includes a new bike lane along Lafayette Avenue, which has not yet been finalized.

In the event that plan is not implemented, we're happy to revisit the creation of a cut through.

And in the meantime, ownership will continue to notify its tenants to direct their suppliers away from Wenter.

And remains open to discussing how to address any ongoing traffic problems.

I should note that based on the extensive traffic studies performed as a part of this application in the EAS, and given the absence of a substantial increase in square footage,

The addition of a supermarket is not projected to have a noticeable impact on winter place in terms of new traffic.

I'll also mention, as you mentioned before, Community Board 10 overall voted in favor of the application, and the Bronx Borough President also recommended approval.

So I think that concludes our presentation, and our larger team is available to answer any questions you might have.