Future uncertain for businesses
Train station project to affect stores and restaurants
GREENWICH — As a $45 million proposed upgrade of the train station began the journey Thursday to get town approvals, the future is uncertain for the stores and restaurants in Greenwich Plaza and along Railroad Avenue.
The plaza is owned by the Ashforth Co., which is overseeing the massive project as part of a public/private partnership with the town of Greenwich. The project would include a new train station on each side of the MetroNorth
tracks, a park, improved commuter access and enhanced retail.
The company, which built Greenwich Plaza about 50 years ago, is aiming to start construction in the fall/winter of 2020, with a tentative completion date in the summer of 2022.
One business that would remain is the Bow Tie Cinemas. Under the current plan, the existing movie theater would be razed to make way for a new park, which would be privately managed but open to the public. A new luxury Bow Tie theater would then be built above the parking lot that is part of the plaza.
But it’s not clear what will happen to other businesses in the area.
The Hopscotch beauty salon has closed its shop at 10 Railroad Ave. and moved to the Hyatt Regency in Old Greenwich. Salon owner Hisao Oe said Ashforth had not been renewing leases in the plaza. Given the uncertainty, Oe said he felt it was best to make the move.
“This was not something we could wait around for,” he said Thursday.
As project architect Frank Prial Jr. discussed the project Thursday before the Board of Selectmen, he said the Olive Branch Café at 26 Railroad Ave. could remain. No other businesses were mentioned during the meeting in Town Hall.
“Each one of these situations is a different discussion with a different tenant,” Ashforth coCEO Darrell Harvey said after the meeting. “Some will stay and some will not.”
An employee of Planet Pizza said Thursday that the restaurant’s future on Railroad Avenue remains to be determined — and that was the case at other places in the plaza.
David LaRusso, owner of Rink & Racquet, and Carlos Lopez, senior store manager at Gym Source, said they have not received any official notice about the project, but neither wants to move.
“We don’t want to leave here,” Lopez said. “We’re hoping to stay. We’ve been getting a lot of questions from our customers.”
Abraham Soler, an employee of Signature Cycles, said the store has a contract to remain at its current location until 2025.
“We’re staying,” Soler said. “We have a contract here.”
Soler added that he and others at the store support the project. “I think it’s going to be great,” he said. “It’s needed.”
Ashforth has brought in a leasing consultant, but no decisions have been made as the company awaits approvals from the town, Harvey said.
That process is expected to be lengthy: Greenwich must approve the construction plans and the complicated public/private partnership. At Thursday’s Board of Selectmen meeting, Town Administrator Ben Branyan outlined the deal in which the town would transfer its air rights to the property to Ashforth.
The town’s appraisal says those rights are worth $10 million; Ashforth’s appraisal
set it at $7 million. Either way, Branyan said the town will benefit from $15 million worth of improvements, including the park, with a plaza, trees and a “water feature,” and the new train stations on both sides of the railroad tracks.
Under the deal, if the cost of the improvements is less than the appraised value of the air rights, the difference would be given to the town, Branyan said. Also, the added value of an improved Greenwich Plaza on the town’s grand list would make up for the loss in revenue each year from the air rights. Currently, the town leases the air rights to Ashforth.
“We approached this as a partnership, however, the (town administration) was very focused on protecting taxpayer interests,” Branyan said.
The Board of Estimate and Taxation and the Representative Town Meeting must approve the deal for the project to move forward. And that’s in addition to all of the approvals needed from the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
The ball got rolling with Thursday’s appearance before the Board of Selectmen about granting municipal improvement status for the project. The selectmen are expected to make a decision at their July 23 meeting, and they gave Ashforth a chance to push its vision for the project.
The project could have an enormous impact on the downtown area, said Prial, who also worked on the revitalization of Grand Central Terminal and oversaw the successful conversion of the Greenwich Avenue Post Office into a Restoration Hardware store.
It could make central Greenwich into a destination, which would attract more businesses and “create a continuity of retail and of experience” that would benefit the town, Prial told the selectmen.
“As soon as I arrived in Greenwich after getting on a train from Grand Central, I went through the (Greenwich) station without even really being aware I was in a station,” he said. “And then when I got onto Railroad Avenue and I made my way up the hill, it occurred to me that Greenwich really didn’t begin until I got about halfway up the hill.
“I said, ‘Now this feels like Greenwich. Now this feels like the place I’ve heard about.’ This project is an opportunity to bring Greenwich to Railroad Avenue and complete the loop,” he said.
Harvey said he views the project as a “gateway to Greenwich” that will attract millennials to town.
If the selectmen allow the developers to pursue municipal improvement status, which is expected, the project will go before the Planning and Zoning Commission for the first time on July 30.
The deal for the public/private partnership will move to the BET next week, with the Law Committee scheduled to meet about it on Monday and the Budget Committee set to take it up on Tuesday. Then it will go before the full BET at its July 22 meeting.
The RTM will have the deal on its call for September.