COLONIE – The former Sushi X restaurant on Central Avenue has been demolished to make way for a 5,275-square-foot Cumberland Farms complete with six gas pumps.
The land is zoned Commercial Office Residential, which is appropriate for the convenience store, but because of its size it is considered a supermarket and also as a mini-mart because of plans to sell gasoline.
In November 2018, the Planning Board granted final approval to the project.
In March, the Zoning Board of Appeals approved a variance to the 20-foot setback requirements.
As proposed, there will be two curb cuts onto Central with 53 parking spaces including 12 at the pump. The store will be open around the clock, seven days a week.
At 5,275 square feet it is larger than the Cumberland Farms already open on Central Avenue east of this location, but Stephanie Bitter, a representative for Cumberland Farms at the Planning Board meeting last year, said it will offer more services and products.
Much of the discussion was about traffic but not the number of trips generated from the new store. Rather, it was about the CDTA bus stop on Central Avenue which does not have a pull off spot and buses just stop in the middle of the right hand driving lane to pick up or discharge passengers.
CDTA, however, “maintains that there is no current need to relocate the bus stop even with the pending project,” according to the narrative submitted to the Planning Board by Cumberland Farms. “Specifically, CDTA has again indicated that it has not encountered any operational safety issues with the current location.”
The store itself is estimated to generate 86 new trips during the morning peak traffic hour and 95 in the afternoon onto Central Avenue.
Plans are for construction to start next month with the doors to open in September.
— Jim Franco
