Walmart is planning to convert its Riverhead store into a supercenter, the national retailer’s one-stop shopping destination, combining a full-service supermarket offering groceries, bakery, deli, meats and produce with a discount department store.
Walmart representatives met this morning with Riverhead Planning Department staff to discuss the company’s plans during a pre-submission conference at Riverhead Town Hall.
The footprint of the existing store, currently about 167,000 square feet including the outdoor garden center, would be expanded to about 180,000 square feet under the current plans, according to engineer Alek Kociski of Bohler Engineering.
The plan is to build an addition in the area presently occupied by the outdoor garden center and convert the tire center, which is not active, into retail space. The entire interior of the store will be redesigned to accommodate the new supermarket’s offerings, he said. The existing entrance will be moved east of its present location and a new, separate supermarket entrance will be constructed on the eastern end of the structure where the addition will be built.
The expansion will require the purchase of development rights to allow additional floor area in the shopping center, Riverhead Senior Planner Greg Bergman told the Walmart representatives. The developer in 2010 purchased 41 development rights to build the original center, to develop the Walmart store and the other buildings on the site. The number of development rights Walmart needs to purchase will have to be calculated and will depend on whether the original TDRs purchased for the Walmart development have been fully utilized.
The facade of the building will get a facelift as well, Kociski told planners. But it will retain the same brick and general appearance, he said.
Walmart would like to reconfigure parking so that there is more “front door” parking, Kociski said. That could be accomplished by removing some of the landscaped islands and rearranging others, he said. Kociski discussed the code requirements with planners, such as minimum landscaped areas and minimum number of trees. It’s a balancing act, he said. The approved site plan built out by the developer has “a lot of land-banked parking” that Walmart will convert into active parking, Kociski noted.
The expansion plan will require no variances, Walmart attorney Brian Kennedy said.
Suffolk County DPW may ask for a traffic study, Bergman said.
Since the supercenter will have a deli and a bakery, grease traps are needed, so that requires health department approval, Senior Planner Matt Charters said.
Pre-submission conferences are intended to provide an opportunity for a builder, developer or business to discuss their plans with town staff and get feedback before making a formal application requiring engineered drawings.
Jason Klipa, Walmart’s director of public affairs for New York said he couldn’t estimate when the company will file its application for an amended site plan approval, but it will begin working on preparing the necessary documents.
The “next closest thing” to the Riverhead supercenter would be the Yaphank Walmart, which opened about six or seven years ago, Kilpa said.
Walmart opened the current Riverhead store in 2014, relocating from its prior location in Riverhead Plaza, the Route 58 retail center just east of Ostrander Avenue. The Riverhead Town Board approved the site plan across from Tanger Outlets in June 2007, but the owner of Riverhead Plaza, where Walmart had been an anchor tenant since about 2001, along with United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 and six individual union members who were Riverhead residents, sued to void the approval.
They won in the trial court, which voided two sections of the town zoning code and set aside the site plan approval. But an Appellate Division panel in May 2010 overturned the lower court decision. That gave the developers the green light to move ahead with their plans. The former Walmart site sat vacant until January 2024, when Restaurant Depot opened there.
Correction: The original article misstated the location of Riverhead Plaza. It is just east of Ostrander Avenue.
The survival of local journalism depends on your support.
We are a small family-owned operation. You rely on us to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Just a few dollars can help us continue to bring this important service to our community.
Support RiverheadLOCAL today.
