Will an old hardware store be transformed into a modern complex with a sports dome?

GUILDERLAND — The Phillips family would like to reinvent the corner of routes 146 and 158, building a huge complex that would include a 50,400-square-foot indoor sports facility, a gas station with a drive-through restaurant, apartments, corporate offices, and an expanded hardware store.  

Jonathan Phillips told The Enterprise in February that he is the fifth generation of his family to lead the business, and that he wants to make changes to ensure that the company will still be around for a sixth generation.

On Wednesday, he gave the town’s planning board a first look at the proposal. The board also reviewed a proposal for a retail center in McKownville that would replace an abandoned building

The project proposed by Phillips Hardware will require the applicant to get a special-use permit from the town’s zoning board. The site is currently zoned General Business.

The project proposes about 50,400 square feet dedicated to an indoor sports dome, as well as 9,600 square feet of retail space, 2,000 square feet of office space, eight apartments, a 4,800-square-foot convenience store with four fuel pumps, a drive-through restaurant, and an attached garage for maintenance vehicles and storage.

Construction would be expected to take eight months.

The sports facility would be used mainly for Guilderland youth sports, company president and owner Jonathan Phillips told The Enterprise. It would be the size of two long soccer fields, with a conditioning area.

It would be similar to Afrim’s in Bethlehem, he said, adding that he currently has letters of intent from Guilderland United Soccer and Guilderland Lacrosse.

“There’s a lot of flexibility that comes from having it in Guilderland,” Phillips said earlier in the week, explaining that he views it as something like a community center that could have multiple uses, for youth, seniors, and schoolchildren. Outside programs could also potentially have access, if any slots are left open once Guilderland sports teams have had their pick, he said.

The store recently became a cooperative with True Value, in which the supplies are dealer-owned, although Phillips Hardware remains the owner of the business. “We’ll be going into farm and ranch and other niches that True Value will allow us to get into,” said Phillips.

The name of the fast-food restaurant will be released upon the town’s approval of the project, he said.

The apartments would be above the convenience store and hardware store and would help to offset some of his costs, he said. It is cheaper and more efficient to build apartments above retail space than to build them separately, he said.

The existing hardware store would remain standing and open until construction is complete; then it would be torn down and converted to parking spaces.

Jonathan Phillips has started a “signature collection sheet” of customers and residents who he says support the project. He estimated that, going into the first meeting with the planning board, he has about 400 signatures.

Board chairman Stephen Feeney said that talking with the New York State Department of Transportation about traffic patterns and about access points will be crucial and will need to guide how the complex is laid out.

Stormwater will be another critical issue requiring further study, board members said. Presenter Mark C. Jacobson said that there is floodway along the nearby Black Creek. Jacobson said that the project’s stormwater basin, which will hold water back for 24 hours, will mean that runoff will be lower even than it is now.

Neighborhood shopping center

Ryan Jankow, the applicant on the McKownville project — which was presented at the meeting by Daniel Hershberg — proposes to tear down the existing one-story building at 1210 Western Ave. and build a 5,220-square-foot “neighborhood shopping center” with either sit-down restaurants or general retail tenants. A patio is planned for the rear, and the parking lot will be restriped to accommodate about 67 spaces.

The site, which is zoned General Business, includes three tax parcels, totaling almost an acre. These are 1206 Western Ave. (0.22 acre) and 1210 Western Ave. (0.64 acre), as well the back of 31 Tryon Pl. (0.11 acre).

The building, the application says, would require an exception from town setback regulations of 50 feet in front and 25 feet at the side. Its setback would be just 8.6 feet in front and 5.8 feet on the side, which the application says “aligns with the adjoining buildings.”

The application submitted to the board said that “removal of an unsightly building and replacement with an attractive new building will improve the viewscape.”

Jankow is also the owner of the nearby City Line Bar and Grill, and noted at the meeting that he would look for tenants that would not compete with his business. Customers typically spend an hour to eat at his sit-down establishment, he said; he’ll look for tenants like fast-serve sit-down restaurants with take-out components that are a step up from fast food.

Board members asked a lot of questions about traffic. Feeney said he remembered that historically that same spot was formerly a no-left-turn area, and board members agreed that it was “impossible” to turn left out of there in the afternoon or at evening rush hour. Feeney said that the first step will be to start having conversations with the New York State Department of Transportation. Feeney said that he would also like to know if there is any accident history there.

The board appointed Ken Johnson of Delaware Engineering as the town’s designated engineer to consult on the project.

Other business

In other business, the planning board:

— Approved the use of an accessory building for St. Madeleine-Sophie at 3510 Carman Road for pre-kindergarten classrooms. Part of the former convent building was renovated in the 1970s and leased to a doctor who recently retired. The site is currently zoned R-15;

— After holding a public hearing on Brendon Davis’s proposal to subdivide a 49-acre Davis parcel on Millard Lane into two lots, unanimously approved the proposal. This will create a fifth lot that will be accessed from the private road. Feeney noted that the board was setting as a condition for approval that this number would be the limit allowable — in terms of lots accessed from Millard Lane — before the private road needs to be upgraded to the same standards as a town road.