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CVS Bound for Bowling Lot

By
Christopher Walsh

Excavation has begun and signs have been approved for a new CVS Pharmacy at the 71 Montauk Highway site of East Hampton Bowl, which closed in 2013 and was demolished last year. Although construction has not begun, Jeffrey Suchman, the New York real estate investor and developer who owns the property, confirmed yesterday that “CVS is renting the building,” and that he hopes to turn it over “in the early New Year.”

“We haven’t heard anything” about a new location or what implications, if any, that would have, an employee of the existing CVS on Pantigo Road said yesterday. Leonard Ackerman, an East Hampton attorney who owns the building, speculated yesterday that CVS may be trying to pre-empt a competitor from taking the space.

The East Hampton Village Design Review Board approved a site plan last July for a 9,982-square-foot, single-tenant structure along with 50 parking spaces, lighting, and landscaping. The village approved Mr. Suchman’s permit for signs at the pharmacy in April.

The new building will be one-third smaller than the one that housed the bowling alley, a legally pre-existing structure that did not conform to zoning. The village’s zoning board of appeals granted a variance last year to allow coverage of the parcel to be 74.6 percent although the zoning code limits coverage in a commercial district to 60 percent. The coverage has been reduced from the bowling alley’s 80.6 percent and the new structure will be closer to Montauk Highway with most parking shifted behind it.

Four lighted signs are to go up. A 29.83-square-foot sign will be on the building’s facade, 18.5 feet above the ground at its highest point. A two-sided “monument” sign of 12 square feet on either side will be installed on metal posts one foot from the northern property line and perpendicular to Montauk Highway. It is to be eight feet high and lighted by in-ground LED fixtures.

A 2.42-square-foot plaque listing the store’s hours is to be installed next to the main entrance, and a fourth sign, of three square feet, will denote the building’s freight entrance. LED lighting to illuminate signs will be directed to ensure that no glare extends beyond the property lines, according to the application, and that it does not disturb the vision of passing motorists.

East Hampton Bowl hosted recreational and competitive bowling for 54 years. The building’s roof collapsed under the weight of heavy snowfall in January of 2015, prior to its demolition.

 

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