GUILDERLAND — With fewer tenants than expected making the move to Guilderland, the developers of a proposed regional cancer center have downsized the project. 

Rich Rosen of Columbia Development told the Guilderland Planning Board on Aug. 14 that, when the project was first proposed, “we discussed the size of the building at 120,000 square feet, and we talked about it being our best-guess estimate at the time, based on programming information we received from our client and doing some block plans.”

The proposal is now for a 105,000-square foot New York Oncology Hematology facility, near Crossgates Mall.

“One of the practices is going to stay where it is currently and not make the move to this building,” Rosen said. 

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

The project is seeking a variance for the parking spots.

The total proposed, 560, is 115 fewer spaces than required by town code. When first proposed, Columbia was seeking to install 140 fewer spots than was required by code, 760.

Rosen said, between full staffing and total patient capacity, the facility expects to need about 420 spots at peak times, leaving 140 extra spaces available.

Rosen also noted that, although the overall number of parking spaces had been reduced, the number of spots per 1,ooo square feet of space, the parking ratio, had increased from 5 spaces per 1,000 square feet to 5.5 per 1,000, both of which are greater ratios that NYOH’s current Patroon Creek location, which has 4.2 spots per 1,000 square feet.

When it came to the planning board making its recommendation, Chairman Stephen Feeney said to Town Planner Kenneth Kovalchik, “So I don’t know, Ken, how it would modify our previous review, other than it’s probably improved the site.”