Walgreen's Application Approved For Hamburg Turnpike

The Planning Board approved an application for a new Walgreen's store on Hamburg Turnpike Monday night.

The board approved the application 6-1. Board member and Councilwoman Lonni Miller Ryan cast the lone vote against the application.

The store will have large glass windows covering most of the front of the building to let in more light and a white roof, both eco-friendly features. The windows will let in more sunlight, decreasing the need to use fossil fuels to illuminate the interior of the store. The roof will also reflect more sunlight away from the building and into the atompshere, lowered the ambient temperature of and around the building.

The Board of Adjustment voted down an application to construct a Walgreen's at the same location in 2010. 

The store will have an entrance and exit ramp on Hamburg Turnpike. A drive-through window will be located on the rear side on the store, nearest to Alps Road. An entrance and exit ramp will be integerated into a jug handle that will lead out to an adjacent property being redeveloped by Faces Plus Salon and finally to Alps Road.

The jug handle is one in a series of jug handles in an effort to alleviate traffic on the heavily-traveled thoroughfare. Township officials have spoken to the Passic County Planning Board about the effect the jug handles could have on nearby side streets.

"The county Planning Board is under no obligation to listen to what Wayne township has to say and its unfortuante that they are buidling roads in our neighborhood," Ryan said. "I understand the frustration and the amount of traffic there, but, at the end of the day, this was a project that stood on its own merits. It is not about the jug handle."

A group of residents spoke out against the application. They claimed the store, particularly the drive-through, will create additional traffic for them to contend with in what is already a congested neighborhood.

"We can't get off of our street as it is the traffic is so outrageous," said Perry Delvecchio, a resident of nearby Moutainview Drive. "[This is] only going to make traffic worse."

There is already a in Wayne on Valley Road. Two pharmacies are located close to where the new store will be: a across the street in the Preakness Shopping Center, and in the Wedgewood Shopping Center across from the Wayne Hills Mall.

An 8-foot tall sign for the store will be located near Hamburg Turnpike. The sign will be surrounded by shurbs. it is the reason Ryan voted against the application.

"I feel that smaller signs are better," Ryan said. "I've been to communities where they don't allow big signs and no one has a problem finding stores. It's just visually nicer."

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