Crossgates Mall developers heeded concerns of Guilderland Planning Board members and revised its site plan to more clearly show impacts of the proposed two-story addition, along with a more attractive exterior design.
At its meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 18, the Town Zoning Board of Appeals heard Crossgates’ plans to add 41,660 square feet through an expansion, making way for two restaurants on the first floor and two “entertainment venues” on the second floor. A public hearing was also held on the special-use permit Crossgates is seeking, but board members kept the hearing open. Crossgates went before the Albany County Planning Board on Thursday, Dec. 19. It will return to the Guilderland zoning board for final approval.
Concerns continued to primarily focus on how the expansion would affect parking lots and traffic flow in the surrounding area. The addition would be in front of the entrance in between Dick’s and the doors leading to the escalator up to the food court.
“There are some minor changes to parking areas,” said Robert Sweeney, the lawyer representing Crossgates. “The changes are basically parking lot configurations in response to the [planning] board’s comments.”
Sweeney said the revised parking lot configuration returns to how parking exists today. However, Zoning Board Chairman Peter Barber said the planning board preferred changing the parking spaces to be parallel to the building as presented in the original expansion site plan.
Sweeney said developers believed there was more concern over having long drive aisles running north and south, with town planners requests the lanes be split through the middle by a cross aisle. Sweeney said the middle split would result in “losing an awful lot of parking and efficiency” with the change.
“We get the shorter parking aisles by doing it east to west, and it accomplishes a couple of other things that they spoke to,” Sweeney said.
Barber said town planners appeared to prefer the changed lot configuration, but wanted revisions made to it. Barber noted nearly all parking lots are configured how planners preferred it.
If Crossgates’ revised plan was approved with parking remaining as currently configured, there would still be a loss of spaces across the two affected lots. Those parking lots would lose approximately 77 spaces and drop to a total of around 1,345 spaces.
The mall is required to provide 4.5 spaces for each 1,000 square feet of gross leasable area, with the mall holding 1.6 million square feet total. There must be 7,222 parking spaces provided, and after the expansion there will be 7,408 spaces.
“We are comfortably above 4.5 on this plan with the expansion,” Sweeney said, “so there is no parking variance for the number of spaces.”
How many parking spaces would remain under the planning board’s desired lot configuration, which would likely reduce spaces, has not been determined.
Crossgates representatives remained mum on what the new businesses will be or is hoped to be, but the chain restaurant World of Beer appears to be coming to the mall.
Spotlight News could not confirm where the restaurant — which the company describes as “a thriving beer-centric tavern boasting an extensive collection of brews from around the globe” — would be located. A spokesperson for the company would only confirm the business is looking to expand into the “Albany area.”
World of Beer has a page on its website listing a location at Crossgates Mall as “coming soon.” There is also a job application for future Crossgates location on the same page.
A spokeswoman from Construction Data Company News, distributor of public and private commercial construction leads, confirmed construction is planned to begin Monday, Jan. 6. The construction project is listed as a “renovation.”