Solar Power Plan Supported By Council

The Common Council authorized Mayor Drew to negotiate and sign an agreement with Greenskies, Inc, to build solar systems on City property and sell the electricity to the City at a rate of 6¢ per kilowatt hour. This is less than half of the cost that the City is currently paying.

Welcome to Rite Aid

Rite Aid pharmacy opened their new store at Main & Union on Thursday, leaving the old "Pelton's" building at the corner of William & Main.

The move brings a few changes for the store: the new location is 14,000 sq. ft., up from the old building of 11,000. And readers of the Eye might remember that a drive-thru window was placed at the back of the store after receiving a special exception from the Planning & Zoning Commission.

Officially known as Landmark Square, the building is also now the headquarters its developer and owner, Centerplan, which moved its offices from Hartford. At this point, there are still some office and retail spaces open in the building.

Not a Picture Perfect Moment For Rite Aid

Today, Moody's Investor's Rating Service published a list called The Bottom Rung. This list provides information about 283 companies which Moody's predicts as having the greatest chance of failure this year because they will default on their debt. Moody's predicts 45% of the companies will fail by year end.

Included on the list, Barney's New York, Chiquita Brands, Dole Foods, Eddie Bauer, Ford, GM, Guitar Center, Jacuzzi, Orbitz, Reader's Digest, Sirius XM and Rite Aid, among others.

Finishing touches are just being made to a new Rite Aid store on the corner of Main and Union Streets in Middletown.

Perhaps one of the steps in granting zoning exceptions to business developments planning to come to town is to examine closely their financial status, and debt rating.

Did we compromise downtown zoning for a company that will be out of business next year?

Last October (2007), the Planning and Zoning Commission, at the urging of Mayor Sebastian Giuliano, voted to allow the construction of a Rite Aid on the corners of Main and Union Streets with an exception to town regulations against Drive-Thru windows on Main Street.

Here's what I wrote at the time:

After a lengthy presentation and public hearing, the Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to allow the construction of a new Rite Aid on the corner of Main and Union Streets. There was some public support, and support from the business community, but several individual residents stood up and argued against the drive-thru window in the rear of the building which requires changing the grade level of the back parking lot. Construction of that window then requires a tall retaining wall running nearly the entire length of Union Street. Residents also noted that allowing the exception for the drive-thru downtown opens the door for other businesses to request the same kind of accommodations.

Now Wall Street experts (and to be honest, who can trust them these days), are predicting that Rite Aid will not survive 2009. Here's what 247wallstreet.com has to say:

Rite Aid (RAD) trades at $.35 down from at 52-week high of $4.16. The pharmacy company has over 5,000 stores and Wall St. does not expect it to be profitable in the foreseeable future. The chain is a roll-up of the original company and Brooks and Eckerd stores which it acquired. With a debt load of over $6 billion, the firm is likely to falter. Competitors CVS Caremark (CVS) and Walgreen (WAG) would be happy to pick up the pieces. Rite Aid recently announced poor quarterly numbers and cut forecasts.

If that happens, what's to become of the big beautiful building on Main Street, with the ugly drive through and retaining wall?

Walls and bridges, or the things we do to drive-thru

COMMENTARY


A few contested decisions of town zoning commissions over the past year resulted in approvals for special, some would say "creative," design solutions to allow drive-thru pharmacy windows for two chain pharmacies which are nearing completion.

Sometimes those architectural sketches are a little hard to interpret, and it's worth it to revisit the proposals to see what happens when brick and mortar take the place of paper and ink.

In the case of the new CVS (because Middletown desperately needs another CVS), on Washington Street, developers proposed building a new bridge over the Cochingchaug River and a curb cut and entrance on West Street because entrance and exit on Washington Street was considered too precarious. After much debate, especially by environmental experts who believe that stretch of the Cochinchaug is already threatened, the new entrance and bridge was approved.

Here's what it looks like today. The bridge might be considered handsome, if it didn't point directly to the destination - a drive-thru window.

On Main Street, zoning officials allowed another chain pharmacy, Rite-Aid (because Middletown desperately needs another Rite-Aid), an exception to a regulation which prohibits drive-thru windows on Main Street. Again, after considerable argument from the public, the zoning officials granted the exception, which included some extreme grading, and a large retaining wall on Union Street, across from the YMCA. The builders promise some ameliorating plantings to make up for the fact that you've got to drive to the second floor to get to the parking lot, and the drive-thru.

It's some wall, nearly a half a block long, and about 15 feet high at its highest point.

Believe me, I'm not opposed to development, nor to drive-thru windows - I actually use them occasionally (but I prefer chatting to the barristas at the Starbucks inside the store where I buy my latte), we need, simply to consider that a wall or a bridge on paper is something else again when built.

Rite Aid sign exception

Was approved by the ZBA Thursday evening (and I use that term loosely for the public meeting held inconveniently at the end of the work day, and the middle of supper at 5:30 pm). The board voted to allow another exception for the Rite Aid development. The original exception was for a drive-thru window (formerly forbidden by regulation on Main Street), and the necessary grading and tall retaining wall on Union Street necessary for the window to be at Main Street level. The Rite Aid development may now place 11 signs (two freestanding), on and near their development, when zoning code allows six.

Documents for ZBA meeting on 2 Main St.

Provided by City Hall Planning Department, you can find the documents here.

The meeting takes place Thursday, August 7, 5:30 pm in the Common Council chambers.

Rite Aid Asks Again

Our downtown has sprouted another Zoning notice, this time on the new building going up on the corner of Union and Main. The site of the former Middletown Press building is under construction as a 2-story building that will reportedly house a re-located Rite Aid pharmacy, an unnamed retail or restaurant tenant, and upper floor office space for the developer, Centerplan.

This is not the first time that this property has sought relief from zoning regulations -- prior to construction, they had to get approval for their plans to add a drive-thru window to the back of the pharmacy space, and a variance because they only had 40 ft. for the drive-thru lane instead of the required 200 ft. In the B-1 zone of downtown, drive-thru windows are currently restricted, unless allowed by Special Exception of the Planning and Zoning Commission. This restriction came about in the 1990's, during a round of zoning reforms that were intended to help the downtown capitalize on its assets -- as a walkable, commercial neighborhood of mainly historic buildings. This was controversial at the time, as it meant that we were basically saying no to any new chain restaurants (remember Burger King on Main Street?) and the concern was that downtown could not afford to turn away any potential new tenants. But Main Street has in fact thrived under these regulations, and it can hardly be denied that the zoning restriction within downtown has pushed much of the car-oriented fast food and donut shop development to other areas of town -- with its resulting acres of asphalt and short-term architectural values.

But I digress.

Their upcoming application regards signage. They are applying to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a variance -- I understand that they would like to add additional signs on the sidewalk, which are not allowed. They are currently scheduled to make their appeal at the August 7th meeting of the ZBA.