GUILDERLAND — After years of delays brought on by resident lawsuits, there are finally signs of life for the long-planned Costco Wholesale at the corner of Western Avenue and Crossgates Mall Road.  

Site work is slated to begin soon on approximately 28 acres along Route 20 to make way for the price club as well as a 105,000-square-foot regional cancer center between Costco and Hilton hotel. 

The town of Guilderland on Monday notified residents of the work. 

The town “was notified that the demolition of homes and tree clearing for the proposed Costco and New York Oncology & Hematology Treatment Center will soon take place,” the March 17 email stated. “You may see construction activity along Crossgates Mall Road and Western Avenue during the site preparation phase on each project site.”

The email also emphasized the scrutiny the project received from the town, “a 1.5-year long review of potential environmental impacts, including traffic, neighborhood, biological, historical, and stormwater,” and concluded that Costco’s anticipated completion would take place some time in October, November, or December. 

The NYOH facility has a target completion of December 2026, the town said in its email.  The Guilderland Zoning Board of Appeals in November approved Columbia Development to build the center. The board also approved Columbia’s variance request to allow for 117 fewer parking spaces than is called for by code. 

NYOH, the largest outpatient cancer provider in the Capital Region, is currently located on Patroon Creek Boulevard in Albany. That center is spread across several floors there, which doesn’t allow for proper patient flow, the town’s planning board was told last year. 

The project was originally proposed as a 120,000-square-foot center, but fewer tenants than expected decided to make the move to Guilderland, shrinking the development to a 105,000-square-foot facility.

In addition to the change in building size, other changes made to the project were the reduction in parking spots, the addition of green space, and the replacement of an underground stormwater storage system with a surface retention pond.

Costco

In April 2020, following the clear-cutting of 8 acres on the proposed Costco site, a federal lawsuit was filed against project developer Pyramid Management Group, two of the company’s subsidiaries, and the town of Guilderland, along with its zoning and planning boards. 

It was the first of five suits filed to stop the project. Four of the suits were brought by the same petitioners — Westmere residents including Thomas and Lisa Hart along with the owner of 1667 Western Ave., LLC, home to a Mobil gas station and Stewart’s Shop — while a fifth was brought by Save the Pine Bush, a grassroots advocacy group with a mission of conserving the globally rare pine barrens.

The federal suit argued the clear-cutting violated the federal Clean Water and Endangered Species acts in addition to the state’s Environmental Quality Review Act, while also claiming a violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutionally-protected due process rights and privileges. The federal judge overseeing the case dismissed it in August 2020 because the complaint hadn’t met the legal definition of readiness. 

In September 2020, the same group filed suit in Albany County Supreme Court, seeking to stop Pyramid’s proposed development. The lower court judge agreed with the plaintiffs and halted the projects in November of that year, but his decision was overturned in July 2021 by the state Supreme Court’s Third Appellate Division.

Save the Pine Bush also sought to use the courts to stop the project from moving forward, but the not-for-profit group ended up on the wrong side of two decisions: In October 2021, when the lower court judge in the case dismissed the suit because a number of its arguments were found “to be lacking in merit,” and in May 2022, when that decision was upheld on appeal.

The fifth suit, the fourth brought by the Harts and their business neighbor, was filed 16 days after the town’s Industrial Development Agency in August 2023 signed off on $2.2 million in tax breaks and agreed to take the town-owned roads by eminent domain. 

The project — a 160,000-square-foot store, 18-pump gas station, and 770-spot parking lot — was also held up by financial issues. 

In June of last year, members of the IDA board approved Pyramid’s $2.14 million request for sales-tax relief and another $75,000 break in mortgage taxes. At the time, the project cost had risen to $41.4 million, up from $39.9 million, with $32.4 million of that coming out of Pyramid’s pocket and the remaining $7.5 million coming by way of private-sector funding. 

By October, things had changed. 

IDA attorney A. Joseph Scott said at the time, “There were some changes in the straight lease transaction necessitated by some changes in their construction financing,” meaning Pyramid was now on the hook for $13 million in construction financing, a 75-percent spike that also netted the company $55,000 in additional mortgage breaks. 

By the start of this year, things started to become a little clearer. 

Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber during his state of the town address said Costco would be opening in late 2025, “last I heard.” He said, “It takes four months to build because it’s just a box — no basement, nothing really specialized about it.” The timing, he said, is dependent on the company having a “building slot.”

The January meeting of IDA also shed a little more light on the project.

“I’ll give the usual comment in regard to the Costco closing,” Donald Csaposs, chief executive officer of the IDA, said on Jan. 28. “I was in discussion with Pyramid’s representatives about two weeks ago and they told me at that point in time, their best guess for closing was 30 to 45 days, which would put us toward the end of February or early March.” 

Csaposs explained to The Enterprise in February that his use of the word “closing” during the meeting had to do with the IDA approval to provide the project sales and mortgage tax relief.

Asked at the time if “closing” on the sales and mortgage tax relief is something that would have held up construction, Csaposs said, “It doesn’t legally hold up the project,” but if Pyramid were to start construction and “if anything happened to the project that would jeopardize the restrictions on the IDA financial assistance, they could be out that financial assistance.”

Csaposs went on to explain there were two separate things at work.

First, there is the legal process of: Can Pyramid start? And then, there’s the financial process of: Should Pyramid start before it’s closed the transaction that confirms the financial benefit?

“So, prudent fiscal management dictates you don’t start the project until all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed,” Csaposs said.