Amherst, N.Y. (WBEN) - "Everyone is focused on Costco, but we're really going to turn that place into a homerun for the town of Amherst."
Amherst Town Supervisor Brian Kulpa updated the Costco project
on WBEN Monday and confirmed that neighboring property on North Bailey Avenue will be home to a Dick's House of Sport as well as offices for Delta
Sonic car wash company and renovated offices for KeyBank.
How does it all fit?
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"It's over 50 acres back there," noted Kulpa. "It's roughly comparable to
the Boulevard Mall site. It's that big," he said, in terms of size.
The Costco store would be approximately 165-thousand square feet.
It would include 16 gas pumps.
It received approval from the Amherst Planning Board last week, which
allows construction to commence.
Dick's House of Sport is the next generation of Dick's Sporting Goods.
It would replace the existing Dick's store at the Boulevard Mall.
The new store features a climbing wall, batting cages and an outdoor turf field.
"The field is intended to be something you could rent or try out equipment on." Kulpa said, "they've been very successful with it elsewhere.
There is already a traffic impact in that area and these stores are not even built yet. Plans call for a new road, driveways, and new intersections with traffic signals on North Bailey.
"One of the things that these projects do is pay a mitigation fee to the town. Roughly 1.5 million dollars in infrastructure costs is going to come directly from these projects. That's not tax abatement. That's 100% traffic impact," said Kulpa.
Additionally the retailers will pay sewer mitigation and storm water mitigation costs.
"We're excited that they want to come into the area and that they want to make the investment," added Kulpa.
Regarding a timeline on the projects, Kulpa said it depends on how much construction gets done over the upcoming winter. "My guess is that it's probably at least 18 months of construction."
Kulpa reminded us that the development marks a complete turnaround for that section of Amherst.
"That area was drained of life a few years back. When I came into office, Boulevard Mall was in receivership and retail was dwindling everywhere. Now we see a resurgence in the retail market. There's a fervor in that space. Markets have woken up and said 'this is a good part of Amherst to build in.' He reminded us, " It took a lot to get here. But we're finally hitting that moment."