Stop & Shop gets green light

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. is poised to dominate the market for grocery shopping in White Plains for years to come, after officials agreed in principle last week to its plan for a new supermarket near The Westchester mall, 1.5 miles from its North White Plains store.

The city's Common Council on May 1 chose Super Stop & Shop over a rival plan by the operator of Westchester's seven ShopRite stores, Big V Supermarkets Inc. of Florida, N.Y. That choice came in a "consensus" resolution to be translated into formal approval later this year.

In choosing Stop & Shop, the council gave the winner an important outpost in its campaign to become Westchester's top supermarket chain - a distinction now held by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P). The council also handed Big V yet another defeat in its 14-year quest to build a new ShopRite in White Plains.

The approximate location of both supermarket plans, Westchester and South Kensico avenues, sits near some of the toniest neighborhoods in the city and neighboring Harrison. A new supermarket there could easily generate $40 million in annual sales, said Cornelius J. J. Madera Jr., president of the C. J. Madera Co., a supermarket developer in Tuxedo Park.

That estimate applies, Madera said, even to Super Stop & Shop despite having a sister store minutes away by car.

"There's so much leakage of sales from the White Plains area, in terms of people traveling far beyond what's normal driving time to shop at a supermarket," Madera said. "I wouldn't say Big V is hobbled, but Stop & Shop is growing in the number of modem units that shoppers feel comfortable in."

Over the past year, Stop & Shop opened two new "Super" stores in New Rochelle and won approvals for a third at Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers. It also opened part of a new North White Plains store, pursued plans in Yorktown, and beat ShopRite for a lease at the Port Chester retail complex planned by G&S Investors L.L.C.

Big V is planning new supermarkets in Somers and Hastings-on-Hudson, whose officials the company has sued to reverse a 1999 rejection of plans.

In White Plains, construction on the Stop & Shop will not start until the council approves site plans - something unlikely until at least summer, said William S. Null of the White Plains law firm Cuddy & Feder & Worby L.L.P., which represents Stop & Shop and its developer, Street-Works Development and Consulting Group of White Plains.

Stop & Shop and Street-Works won conceptual approval for a 76,852-square-foot store on the lower half of a two-level structure. Above would be a new 69,250-square-foot garage for the city Department of Public Works (DPW).

The plan would redevelop 6.5 acres much of it now occupied by existing businesses to be razed, including a branch of The Bank of New York, Post Bowling Academy and Colin Service Systems Inc.

All three would have been spared under ShopRite's plan for a 60,000-square-foot store with 150 enclosed customer parking spaces. Above the store would have been four additional levels of parking with about 1,300 total spaces - 300 of them for employees and overflow customers.

ShopRite's plan would have risen on 3.2 acres that its developers hoped to acquire by swapping for it about 3 acres it owns on nearby Brockway Place. There, father-and-son developers Salvatore and Nicholas Pep'e had proposed to build a new 32,700-square- foot public works garage, a 17,250-square- foot sanitation facility and a 7,500-square-foot purchasing department warehouse.

The plan marked Big V's sixth potential site in White. Plains since 1986. Stephen L. Hittman, vice president-real estate with Big V, would not comment on the latest setback in White Plains minutes after the council vote. But Nicholas Pep'e said there were no plans to challenge the decision in court: "We're going to study the site and see what else we can do there."

One option could be to use the Brockway Place land for the parking garage, which the Pep'es had said was needed to solve a parking crunch at their office building Westchester One (44 South Broadway), a quarter-mile north.

Stop & Shop's victory reflected in part the citys divided government. All five Democrats on the Common Council voted for Stop & Shop, while Mayor Joseph M. Delfino and council member Larry Delgado, both Republicans, sided with ShopRite.

Delgado noted that competing for approvals with ShopRite forced Stop & Shop to abandon it-, original plan calling for a supermarket atop an underground DPW garage - a plan skewered as unworkable by public works commissioner Joseph J. (Bud) Nicoletti Jr.

"That's the kind of competition that should be in White Plains for the shopping public," Delgado said.

Supporters argued that Stop & Shop would likely lower prices in North White Plains once its rebuilt store is completed later this year with a larger parking lot; and that Stop & Shop would still try to undersell PathMark and A&P since both operate stores in neighboring Greenburgh.

Stop & Shop supporters also argued its plan would better beautify a "gateway" intersection, and offer better customer service since it would have 20 checkout counters, versus eight for ShopRite. ShopRite backers expressed fears that the public works garage above Stop & Shop's parking area could be a magnet for roaches and vermin that would travel to the supermarket site.