If
Wegmans proceeds with its plans to double the size of its East Avenue store,
only one thing seems to be certain: That section of East Avenue near Winton
Road — generally considered the gateway to the East Avenue Preservation
District — may change. Drastically.
           If some neighbors’ worst fears
materialize, the north side of East Avenue from Probert to Winton will go from
being a collection of locally owned street-front businesses to one big wall of
Wegmans, with M&T Bank in a new building on the corner.
           Wegmans officials say the expansion
will require the demolition of all the buildings Wegmans has acquired, on the
north side of East Avenue stretching from the store to Winton Road. The
Fountain Bleu hair salon at 1812 East Avenue will also stay unless its owner,
Robert Buonomo, decides to sell. (He declined comment for this story.) And
Wegmans is constructing a one-story building at the corner of East and Winton
that it will lease to M&T Bank.
Since Wegmans
started buying these East-Winton properties more than two years ago, the
Culver-University-East Neighborhood Group has hosted neighborhood meetings and
an extensive design charrette.
           “Each time we have a meeting we make
suggestions, and [the expansion plans] seem to reflect those suggestions,” says
CUE President Sib Pettix.
           But how closely is Wegmans following
those suggestions? Well, it depends on who you ask.
           One of the primary concerns among
neighbors is how the expansion will alter the East Avenue streetscape.
Best-case: neighbors envision saving some of the historic structures on the
street while Wegmans builds windows and entryways into, say, the store’s flower
shop or bakery. Worst case: the new store, which will be two stories tall, forms
a large wall on East Avenue with a few windows thrown in.
           Roughly 75 neighbors attended a
presentation Wegmans held at City Hall on Monday, May 3. And many weren’t at
all happy with the plans. Their primary concern was the impact the store would
have on the “urban village” feel in this portion of the city.
           The site plans Wegmans displayed at
the meeting showed roughly 30 to 40 feet of transparent windows along the
300-foot stretch the new store would occupy on East Avenue. The city’s new
design standards, however, require 70 percent glazing — either windows or
doors between 2 and 8 feet above the sidewalk — along a streetscape.
           Roger Brown, an architect with
Barkstrom and LaCroix, attended the charrette and the May 3 meeting.
           The “real, true essence” of the
neighborhood groups’ design charrette two years ago, he told Wegmans officials,
was to “create a lot of pedestrian-friendly shops with entrances and windows
along East Avenue, so over the long haul, this area would be a really fine
place for the pedestrian to be. That was one of the reasons why those three or
four historic buildings remained in the charrette, because those pieces added
to the pedestrian feel. Unfortunately, the one true thing missing here is there
are no access points along East Avenue. So I think the catalyst for starting us
on the road to creating an urban village is really not here. But I’m hoping
that concept really is looked at, because if not, this is going to be nothing
more than a glorified suburban shopping center in the heart of this urban
village.”
This section
of East Avenue has been the home to small, locally owned retail businesses
and boutiques for years. Back in the very early 1900s, this was still the
center of the Village of Brighton. (The City of Rochester annexed the village
in 1905.) A commemorative Monroe County placard sitting along this stretch
calls it a “hub of activity” during the early 19th century.
           The building at 1800 East Avenue
was, at one point, the Brighton Town Hall. It also once served as headquarters
for the Brighton chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
           Today, the building houses
apartments, Michael Spitale Hair Salon, Sternberg Design, and Blu Water, an
Eastern-influenced day spa. And it’s one of a few historic buildings now owned
by Wegmans.
           Some business owners along this
section of East are concerned about losing their buildings’ heritage. But
they’re also worried about their own pocketbooks.
           Trish Laveck is the owner of Blu
Water. Since she opened the day spa five years ago, she says she’s invested at
least $20,000 in the property. It was something she felt she had to do to allow
her business to succeed, even though she’s a renter. She hired local artists to
decorate the interior of the space, which is replete with recycled glass tile.
She also embarked on substantial renovations — installing arched doorways and
plumbing, and reconfiguring rooms.
           “I did all of this with the idea
that I could be here and have my business thrive in an economy that is really
uncertain,” Laveck says.
           Blu Water has roughly 500 clients,
and Laveck employs five part-time employees. But Laveck’s not thinking about
relocating, at least not right now.
           “I haven’t even thought about it,”
she says. “I’ve got to work on saving my building. I want to start a tenant
committee. It’s interesting how the bank’s guaranteed a spot. I wonder why?”
           According to Ralph Uttaro, Wegmans’
senior vice president of real-estate development, “in order to buy the M&T
property, we had to enter into a long-term lease agreement with the bank. They
had significant leverage in that regard.”
           Besides, Uttaro says, keeping the
historic properties would have made the store too narrow. “The store is narrow
as it is, and that would make it extremely narrow. We don’t build small stores
anymore. That’s not our business model.”
           In the front of 1800 East, hair
stylist Michael Spitale is preparing for what he calls “a real inconvenience.”
           “I’ve only been here for three
years, and we’ve put a lot of money into the redecorating of this space,” he
says.
           Now there’s a possibility Spitale
will be moving out of the city entirely, to Brighton’s 12 Corners area.
           “It’s tough. I really wanted to stay
right in this area,” he says. “But I couldn’t find anything around here. If you
go down to the East End, there’s just no parking. They have a couple of stores
that are vacant there, but they’re still vacant because there’s no parking. I
have to have parking, and it just isn’t around here.”
           Spitale acknowledges that Wegmans is
within its rights to do whatever it pleases with 1800 East. “They bought it and
they own it,” he says. “They let everyone’s leases run out, and they’ve been
great landlords. But these are beautiful buildings. This one and the Doyle
building, they’re really excellent. You go through the city and there are areas
that are just trashed. But nothing gets knocked down there. Instead, we’re
going to be knocking things down in a really neat area.”
Wegmans
officials plan to make submit a formal application for the East Avenue
expansion to the city by the end of this month. It’s at that point that “we
really get into the formal local processes,” says Art Ientilucci, the city’s
director of zoning. “Quite frankly, there’s going to be lots of opportunities
for public input.”
This article appears in May 5-11, 2004.
