By Dominik Lobkowicz
A rendering of the facade of the proposed Waldoboro Hannaford expansion. The image was provided by Hannaford at the Waldoboro Planning Board’s May 13 meeting. |
Representatives from Hannaford Supermarkets talked through some finer details about the company’s proposed expansion of its Waldoboro location with the town’s planning board May 13.
Hannaford announced the planned expansion in March, and first met with the planning board in early April. Since then the company has provided hundreds of pages of documentation regarding the project, as well as detailed drawings, to the planning board.
The project would expand the existing 12,350-square-foot store by 6,400 square feet, according to planning board documents.
The expansion project will undergo a site plan review by the planning board at its meeting on Wednesday, June 10.
One area of contention during discussions was over the sign the company is proposing for the new building.
According to planning board Chair Seth Hall, Hannaford’s proposed sign for the building is just shy of five times the 32 square feet the town’s ordinance would allow.
“I think it’s in proportion with the gable end of the [proposed] store,” said Bill McKenney, a senior engineering project manager for Hannaford.
Hall said his interpretation of the ordinance is there is an exception allowing the town’s board of appeals to grant a variance on the sign’s size, which McKenney indicated he was willing to pursue.
Planning board member Barbara Boardman cautioned McKenney about pursuing a variance.
“It’s going to be a struggle, and I wouldn’t raise your hopes,” she said.
Much of the meeting’s discussion regarded proposed changes to existing access to and from Route 1, stormwater runoff, and the store’s parking lot.
Part of the project includes razing the smoke shop building on a neighboring property and installing a right-in, right-out only access between the parking lot and Route 1.
The company has an agreement to buy the smoke shop property, and plans to do so once the permitting process is complete, McKenney said.
According to McKenney, the Department of Transportation will not allow the right-out exit onto Route 1, but he said he plans to make the point to the department that even if the planned exit remains, it would be an improvement over current conditions.
According to Hall, the chatter around town is the right-turn exit would be problematic, since most vehicles exiting there would need to cross a right-turn-only lane to enter the northbound travel lane.
Both Hall and Boardman said they believe the current access from Route 1 through the smoke shop property to be informal and rarely used.
“If it were to go away, we would not be unhappy,” Hall said.
The project is also planned to include improvements to stormwater runoff on the site, such as putting a French or sub-soil drain covered with pervious pavement along the Route 32 edge of the parking lot.
Most of the site’s runoff sheets toward the Medomak River, McKenney said, and adding the French drain and pervious pavement would be a “significant improvement” to current conditions at the site.
The plans also include catch basins for runoff with hooded outlet pipes to prevent oils and debris from flowing out. The company would institute a management plan to regularly clean the basins out, McKenney said.
Waldoboro Planning and Development Director Emily Reinholt asked if Hannaford would be open to alternatives from fertilizers and pesticides being used on the vegetated areas on site, since those could run off into the river.
McKenney said Hannaford would be open to alternatives, but also has to keep in mind the area in question – along Routes 1 and 32 – is where the company presents to their customers.
Both Reinholt and Hall said they were “thrilled” with the company’s efforts to mitigate runoff from the site.
When it came to parking, Boardman brought up that the project includes more parking than ordinances require, and new spots near the intersection of Routes 1 and 32 could cause issues with headlights pointing into oncoming traffic.
The parking lot is proposed to expand from 76 to 109 spaces, according to planning board documents.
According to McKenney, the company’s 125 years of experience with supermarkets is what drives their parking spot numbers.
Normally a project would include a parking lot twice the size of the store, but that amount of space isn’t available at the Waldoboro site, he said.
Exactly how much parking the Waldoboro store will need isn’t yet known and the project may not need all that is proposed, he said.
The company is counting on drawing additional customers to the store – and also expecting customers to buy more groceries during their visits – to justify the expansion, McKenney said.
With the expense of parking, “we really want just the right number,” he said. “It’s hard to do that, though.”
