By Holly Crocco
Plans are moving forward for the creation of a car storage facility in Southeast for Enterprise Car Rental and Brewster Ford, to be located at 1051 Route 22/202/6.
According to Jamie LoGiudice of Insite Engineering, Surveying & Landscape Architecture, P.C., plans for the project, called Volz-Cloverleaf, include a tiered parking area with solar canopies to house about 1,000 cars on the 17-acre site.
Enterprise also plans to erect a 7,500-square-foot commercial building on the property for offices. “They are actually consolidating a bunch of their facilities into this location,” LoGiudice said at the Nov. 28 Southeast Planning Board meeting.
There will be no public assess or sales.
The property will include a car wash and emissions testing for vehicles it houses, as well as stormwater management, a private septic system, lighting and landscaping.
A half-signal has been proposed on the southbound side of Route 6, to allow car carriers to enter and exit the property. Grade changes will also need to be made at the site so vehicles can better access it.
Town Planner Ashely Ley noted that the property is isolated by highway on all sides, and is steeply sloped, and as such, “quite a bit of terracing” may be needed.
“We have a lot of landscaping proposed,” noted LoGuidice. However, she said that due to the sloping and elevation of the property, the project will be visible.
“This is not something we’re ever going to say, ‘You’re not going to see it,’” said LoGuidice. “You are going to see it. It’s a matter of which angle you’re going to see it and how much you pay attention to it.”
Planning board member James King said the project is a clever one for the site, because the property is “pretty useless” since it is locked in by highway.
Fellow board member George Pangis expressed concern about the addition of a half-signal, noting that there will be three traffic lights within a short distance on Route 6, between Starr Ridge Road and Argonne Road.
Resident Peter Scott, who owns properties on Route 6, encouraged the developer to come up with a way to buffer the large areas of pavement that will be seen from passersby at the entrance to the Town of Southeast.
“That property has been around forever, and it’s super visible because the highways are about 30 feet above the terrain and you can look down on it very easily,” he said.
Chairman Tom LaPerch said the project is still in the early stages and “has a ways to go.”
The public hearing was held open with a Jan. 9 continuation.